


no more bailing boats for me (toss me a heavy rope)

by hipsterchrist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Dom/sub Undertones, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hate to Love, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Multi, Personal Growth, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Praise Kink, Road Trips, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Therapy, Wandmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:53:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 166,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hipsterchrist/pseuds/hipsterchrist
Summary: “All of this happened because you lost your magic, you know," she says. Draco lets out a small, quiet burst of laughter at the realization.“God,” he says. “Do you know what? I think it might have been worth it.”





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> To say this is a labor of love is an understatement. I had the original bare bones idea for this in 2008 (thanks, Kate!), wrote 3 pages, and then forgot about it until March of this year, at which point I completely scrapped those 3 pages and reworked the idea entirely into...this. It took from May to September to start and finish it but I did it. It feels good to see a nearly 10-year-old idea come to full fruition. Now I can finally start writing my thesis. Thank you to Rachel for reading as I wrote. 
> 
> Title is from two songs because I couldn't choose: "Little Victories" by Matt Nathanson and "Heavy Rope" by Lights.
> 
> Epigraph is a poem called "A Monstrous Manifesto" by Catherynne Valente, [posted on LiveJournal](http://catvalente.livejournal.com/610889.html) several years ago with permission to reproduce freely.
> 
> Some trigger warnings, if you need them: explicit depiction of anxiety and panic attacks, depression, grief, and PTSD; the hard work of therapy; implied threat of rape (mentioned only once); implied past eating disorder, use of the Cruciatus Curse; minor(-ish) stabbing.

_If you are a monster, stand up._  
_If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,_  
_If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine_  
_If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,_  
_If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams_  
_Come stand by me._

_If you have been broken, stand up._  
_If you have been broken, abandoned, alone_  
_If you have been starving, a creature of bone_  
_If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne_  
_If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,_  
_Come stand by me._

_If you are a savage, stand up._  
_If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,_  
_If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,_  
_If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,_  
_If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,_  
_Come stand by me._

_If you are a devil, stand up._  
_If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,_  
_If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,_  
_If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,_  
_For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,_  
_We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns_  
_And here in the dark is where new worlds are born._  
_Come stand by me._  
\- Catherynne Valente, _A Monstrous Manifesto_

A deal is struck quickly, before Draco’s body can even register that he hasn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, because his mother is swift and tired and terrifying. It goes like this: The Malfoys will tell the Ministry how to find every Death Eater that’s escaped the clutches of law enforcement, will give every gruesome detail of those Death Eaters’ crimes, and the Ministry will allow the Malfoys a pardon and their freedom. Shacklebolt says, “There will need to be trials, and they will need to be publicized. The public won’t let it go otherwise,” and Narcissa casts a glance at her husband and son, and says, “Fine. We’ll give them a show.” Draco feels dizzy. He can’t stop his hands from shaking.

Narcissa’s trial is to be first, then Lucius’, then Draco’s. It’s all highly strategic: Narcissa’s trial will take the shortest amount of time, probably no more than two days, while Lucius’ trial will take at least a full week, and Draco’s crimes will look considerably less awful in the shadow of his father’s. They arrange for witnesses to speak for their defense; it’s a sign of the depth of the numbness that’s enveloped Draco that he can’t even react at all, much less as dramatically as the situation calls for, to Harry Potter showing up at the tiny office where this spectacular performance is being planned and volunteering to defend Narcissa, and Potter, Hermione Granger and, with obvious reluctance and annoyance, Ron Weasley agreeing to take the stand for him. Their Ministry liaison delicately advises against allowing Pansy to speak for Draco when she arrives, looking frenzied and fervent. “Public image is important for these kinds of matters,” the man says, shuffling some papers uneasily, “and unfortunately, public image is not in Miss Parkinson’s favor after the events of--that night.” Draco watches color rise to Pansy’s face, sees her nod and slink silently out the door, hurries out after her before he even realizes that he’s moved from his chair.

“Pansy,” he says, catching her arm. She spins around, her black bobbed hair flying, and Draco feels - finally, something, anything - a bit heartbroken at her shining eyes, her shaky attempt at a smile.

“It’s not a problem,” she says, shrugging, pulling herself slowly from Draco’s grip. “It’s what’s best for your trial, after all. It’s fine.” 

“I--” Draco starts, but whatever the words are for this, he doesn’t have them. It shouldn’t be this way. Pansy gives him a look of utmost sympathy, reaches out and squeezes his hand for a moment before turning away again. He hopes she couldn’t feel the tremors. 

Blaise is another story. When he takes the witness seat next to Draco at the trial, he looks unflappable and stoic as ever. Draco notices, though, the slight purpling of Blaise’s dark skin just under his eyes, and tense lines at the corners of his mouth. Blaise doesn’t so much as glance at Draco as he answers questions, but he does widen the spread of his long arms a bit, angles his elbows so Draco can feel a nearly imperceptible touch against his own arm. The warmth of it actually brings tears to his eyes before he blinks them away. Blaise tells the Wizengamot a story that Draco didn’t even remember until Blaise started talking, of the two of them literally running into one another during the Battle of Hogwarts, Blaise and Slughorn and other Slytherins having returned from Hogsmeade with reinforcements, Draco making yet another last ditch effort to put an end to this; they stared at each other in uncertain silence, eyes darting from their wands to unsure faces, and finally Draco said, quietly, “Dolohov’s injured, weak on his left side,” and Blaise nodded, and they ran off in opposite directions - “But not on opposite sides, clearly,” Blaise ends his testimony eloquently. It’s a beautiful show.

There’s a recess then, and Draco catches Blaise’s eyes in the hallway, says, “Thanks,” and a sudden sincerity burns in Blaise’s eyes when he replies, “Don’t mention it.” It takes only a fraction of a second for Draco to understand.

“Going after the dream job, then?” he says, as lightly as he can manage.

“Trying,” Blaise says. He looks away. “Not sure the Department of Mysteries can bear another employee with ties to Death Eaters so soon.” 

“Right,” Draco says. Blaise lets himself get swept away in the crowd still milling about in the hall and Draco watches him disappear, keeps staring long after Blaise is swallowed by the mass of people. He’s acutely alone.

By the time the Malfoys’ trials are done, reported word for word in at least six different publications and analyzed to death, the remaining living Death Eaters have been captured by the Ministry’s diligent band of Aurors. Draco and his parents testify against every single one of them, his father purging every last detail of their innumerable crimes, his mother taking considerable delight in delivering a scathing testimony against the Lestrange brothers. Draco is less eager, less articulate, despite the rehearsals they keep running through. He celebrates his 18th birthday by taking the seat next to Goyle and sending his old friend - or, whatever - to Azkaban. He can practically feel the dew dampening all over his front from the grass he’s slithering through. He doesn’t care.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s July when they finally get to return home to the Manor, exactly as they left it, evidence of death and violence and terror disgracing every corner. It’s its own prison, really, and Draco must spend every waking minute for nearly two weeks lying on his back, silent, numb, gazing up at the ceiling and seeing nothing. His parents talk, to each other, to themselves, to him, but it’s all hushed, like they’re afraid someone unwelcome is still in this house, will hear them, will strike at them for making a sound, but only Draco hears them. He takes some comfort in the quiet hum of their voices. If he tilts his head a bit, squints like he’s reading small print, glides his hand fluidly through the air as if playing catch-and-release with a Snitch, and listens to his parents murmuring, it’s almost like it used to be.

One day he hears his mother say, lazily, “Pureblood, at least,” and his father makes a noise of haughty agreement, and Draco feels angry disbelief flood through him. He sits up on the couch, turns to look at them, and says, his voice hoarse from disuse, “Are you serious?” His parents give him startled looks, confused, and Draco only means to expand on his point enough to clarify it, but what comes out is...well.

“Do you honestly think that blood status matters? Still? After going through all of _that_?” he says, every word louder than the one before it. “We nearly _died_ \- and for what?” He flings his arm out toward the enormous tapestry of the Malfoy family crest adorning the wall, gives it a furious look. “‘Purity always conquers’? What utter bullshit!” 

“Draco,” his father starts, but Draco barrels onward, ever a whirlwind. 

“I can’t believe this,” he says. “I can’t believe I--my whole life, you had me believing this mattered, that my Pureblood ancestry was actually important, was all that counted. But what did it get us? Now it’s all just dirt, even our name. You made me believe--you--you--” Draco’s chest hurts; his eyes burn. He sees the frightened look on his mother’s face and still can’t stop the rage from bubbling out of him, even as he’s gasping on it for air. “You let that woman--that _monster_ \--you let her see inside my head, you let her force me to see inside _hers_. You stood here in this room while he made me torture people, and at school - have you ever heard what an 11-year-old sounds like under the power of a Cruciatus Curse? I’ll never be able to forget that - even Snape couldn’t save me from that every time - god, and _Snape_!” he exclaims, rolling his eyes, properly screaming now. “How can blood status mean _anything_ when Snape was what he was? Half-blood! In love with a Mudblood! I mean, _fuck_! I really thought it mattered, I really thought we were right, I thought we would win, but now we’ve just got--we’ve got _nothing_ \--and I--I’m--” Draco suddenly recognizes his haggard breathing for what it is, and shakes his head wildly, starts backing away with one hand open out in front of him. 

“Draco,” his mother says, concerned, but Draco says, “ _Don’t_ ,” and bolts from the room.

He ends up in the library, foregoes the comfortable armchairs entirely in favor of sitting on the floor against the wall between two bookshelves. He pulls his knees up and bows his head over them, threads his fingers into his hair and curves his knuckles into fists, rigid enough to tell himself that’s why they’re shaking. He tries to remember what he learned from Pansy about panic attacks in fifth year, tries to take slow, deep breaths, tries to count the passing seconds faithfully, but he can’t steady his thoughts for anything, can’t even track them at all, until they finally just grind to a painful halt of their own volition. 

Draco doesn’t know how much time has passed or how long he’s been crying when his brain quiets, but after another long minute he manages to loosen his grip on his own hair and stretch his legs out in front of him, unfold his spine to lean his head back against the wall. His eyes are closed and he’s counting his breaths when he senses footsteps approach - his father’s, Draco can tell, by the length of his strides - and the figure sit to the side of him, in front of the bookshelf to his right. He counts another thirty before opening his eyes and realizes that this is probably the first time he’s gotten an honest look at his father in over a year. What he sees is jarring. 

The war has aged Lucius significantly, saddled him with full body aches that Draco can actually see on his father. The lines around his eyes are so severe now, he’s just as thin as he was the day he returned from Azkaban, and he’s smelled faintly of firewhiskey ever since they came back to the Manor. Draco notices with a creeping feeling of foreboding that his father’s hands are trembling, too, even as he flexes them, pushes his right thumb hard into the center of his left palm, rubbing forcefully at his knuckles like he’s trying to massage the tremors out. Draco feels sick.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” he says quietly. “I didn’t...I don’t actually blame you, or Mother, for any of this.”

“You should, perhaps,” Lucius says after a moment. He’s progressed to clasping onto each of his fingers in turn so tightly that both of his hands go white. Draco shakes his head.

“My decisions were mine to make,” Draco says. Lucius takes a deep breath. 

“You were,” he says, slowly, choosing his words with deliberation, “I think, not inaccurate in your assessment of the value of blood status, in light of...everything.” 

“I know,” Draco says dryly, and he’s relieved, at least, to see one corner of his father’s mouth lift just a little at the familiarity of his insolence. “And, listen, it’s not just--the war, and all, it’s….” He takes a steadying breath, looks up into his father’s steel grey eyes. This isn’t exactly how he wanted to deliver this news. “I can’t do magic anymore.” 

His father’s brow furrows for a fleeting moment before he says, “What do you mean, Draco?” Draco sighs and looks down at his knees again. 

“I can’t do magic anymore,” Draco repeats. “I don’t--I don’t know why, or what happened, I just...can’t.” 

“Since--since when?” Lucius asks. He sounds terrified. Draco can’t bring himself to raise his eyes again as he tries to remember exactly when he felt the thrum of magic that’s been inside him his whole life seep away from him. It happened through his fingertips, that much he knows. He shrugs one shoulder. 

“After Hogwarts,” he says, “before the trials.” His father stands abruptly and Draco follows suit. 

“Your mother needs to know,” Lucius says, nodding to himself. “She’ll know what to do.” 

Draco’s mother does not know what to do. Draco watches as her hands fly to cover her mouth, unable to hold in a gasp. They’re trembling, too, twitching fingers ending in jagged nails. Draco tightens his own into fists in his pockets while his parents fret over the state of him. He stares into the darkened room across the hall, at the long table in its center, glances back at the Malfoy crest tapestry, and sighs. None of this was worth it.

\---

They leave the Manor, and by the time they return to it three weeks later, Draco swears that he’s held the entire inventories of every wand shop in Europe in his hand. None worked. He knew none would work. In Slovenia, and every country after, he even tried holding them in each of his hands, if only to humor his father, who’d gotten a bit hysterical in Vienna the day before about this whole process and posited that Draco’s wand hand had simply changed, surely, for some reason, and why didn’t they think of that sooner, they’d wasted so much time, now they would have to double back. His mother, thankfully, drew a hard line at that, which meant that Draco at least got the small mercy of not having to revisit Differdange. 

The cloudy skies of July are preparing to give way to the first storm of August when a young Ministry official with dishwater brown hair visits and informs Draco that Severus Snape left everything to him.

“Severus died months ago,” his mother snaps. “Why has it taken the Ministry this long to notify my son of this--inheritance?” The Ministry witch winces. They really should have sent someone with a stronger constitution to deal with Narcissa Malfoy.

“Well, it was only just recently found, Mrs. Malfoy,” she says. “Minerva McGonagall - she’s Headmistress at Hogwarts now - she only just discovered it. Evidently it was stuck in an old copy of _So You Want to Be a Healer?: A Guide for the Student from Hogwarts to Retirement_. That book’s yours now, by the way, Draco, along with all the rest, and a house, too.”

“My son already has a house,” Lucius says coldly. The young woman flinches rather violently and her papers scatter across the floor, between her feet and the Malfoys’. She’s the only one who moves to retrieve them, hastily and sloppily. Draco only suppresses a roll of his eyes because this conversation has given him an awful headache behind his right brow bone and he reasons that he can’t bear the extra pain just now.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy,” the girl says, “Of course. I only meant--”

“I don’t want it,” Draco says. 

“I--sorry?” she says, eyes wide. 

“I don’t,” Draco repeats, slowly, like he used to have to speak to Crabbe and Goyle, “want it.” The witch blinks and looks down, clears her throat as she straightens the papers in her lap.

“It’s already yours,” she says. “You can do with it what you want - sell it, ignore it, burn it. Lots of options. Just...it’s yours.” She flicks her wand and a sealed envelope floats over to Draco, lands softly on his lap. Draco does roll his eyes this time, and pays just as dearly as expected for it.

\---

It’s not like it’s the first time he’s been to Snape’s house. He spent a decent amount of time there, as a child, and even once or twice as a teenager. Back then all its quirks had been entertaining in one way or another. When he was a rude little kid he thought it was funny to point out the stale dampness of the staircase and watch Snape roll his eyes back dramatically and ignore him for another hour, and when he was a rude second year he thought it was very clever to complain very loudly about the smell of ancient books while reading one of said ancient books, for some reason. 

(“It’s because you’re not cool, Draco,” Blaise said, bored and artless, the one time Draco expressed mild mortification at the memory, two years later. Draco, affronted, turned to Pansy for support, but she was neck-deep in studying for their Arithmancy exam and therefore not inclined to her usual coddling of him. “You’re not cool, Draco,” she said, not even looking up from her notes, “and, by the by, it’s generally when you think you’re being oh so clever that you’re actually being really embarrassing. Perhaps take some time to reflect on that after exams.”)

And now, Draco is a man, still a rude teenager, and standing in this dark, cold house in the relics of a poor mill town, he doesn’t feel entertained at all, finds nothing amusing about the cobwebs collecting where walls meet ceiling, or the shadows creeping along the kitchen floor, or the feeble creak of the door hiding the stairs behind more bookshelves. He and his parents take quiet steps through it, separately, like strangers at a funeral, trying to navigate around someone else’s mourning. 

Except he realizes, slamming the door on the room he slept in as a kid whenever Snape got roped into overnight babysitting - it smells unmistakably like rodent now, and Draco had grown to truly despise that rat with the silver hand - that they never got to mourn Snape at all. There had been a funeral, some memorial service thrown by Potter, who now, Draco surmises, feels like he owes something to a man who intentionally made Potter’s day-to-day life at Hogwarts miserable and enabled others - Draco included - to do so as well, which makes Draco feel absolutely out of his mind. But the Malfoys didn’t get to attend, being on trial and all, and bitterness rises like bile in Draco’s throat as he plods down the stairs, ready to point out this nasty little irony to his parents. 

Instead he stands in the doorway, mouth open formlessly, taking in the sight of his mother staring down at her own white-knuckle grip on a bottle of elf-made wine and his father perched limply on the edge of the threadbare armchair gazing at the dusty floor. It occurs to him that the three of them are probably experiencing entirely different houses right now, that his parents are revisiting the home of a sole savior, of an only friend, now gone. God, he should’ve known this would upset them. He should have told them to stay home. 

He takes a few steps toward his mother, grabs the bottle from her hand. She looks up at him, stricken, haunted, and he puts his hand on her bony shoulder, squeezes once as he glances over at his father, who is now getting to his feet. Draco jerks his head toward the door. “Let’s go home,” he says.

He goes to Hogwarts a few days later, alone. McGonagall is decent enough to not force eye contact or make small talk when she leads him up to the Headmaster’s office - hers, now - and opens the door, gestures awkwardly and says, “I’ll give you some time alone, then.” He’s not sure what she means until the door closes behind him and he looks up to see a portrait of Snape, apparently napping. His jaw clenches automatically and he looks away, toward a few boxes full of things that once belonged to Snape and are now his. Draco walks over and takes some cursory looks over the boxes’ contents. Mostly books, like the Ministry witch said, but also a pensieve, which Draco thinks will at least come in handy, and a closet’s worth of potions supplies. He’s spinning a vial of bulbadox juice between his fingers when he feels someone’s eyes on him, and when he turns his head he sees Snape, eyes open, expression inscrutable. 

“Woken up, have you?” Draco says nastily. “How considerate.” 

“Hello, Draco,” Snape says, voice as dry as ever. “I see that my will has finally made its way to you.” Draco scoffs.

“What do you expect me to do with all this junk?” he says. “With a smelly old house and trunks full of bezoars and hundreds of books?” Snape shrugs, utterly uninterested. Draco feels so angry he could scream. He barely manages to resist grabbing the nearest odd or end to throw at the Snape in the painting. 

“How dare you?” he says through gritted teeth. Snape raises an eyebrow at him. “How very _fucking_ dare you? You--you _lied_ to us! For years! We _trusted_ you! That’s not something the Malfoys do easily, you know.”

“I’m well aware,” Snape says. 

“You were my father’s only real friend,” Draco says, his voice low and dangerous. “My mother depended on you.”

“And you?” Snape asks. Draco’s rage ebbs briefly at the way the harsh lines of Snape’s face have smoothed and softened. He takes three deep breaths.

“You know what you were to me,” he says, hardly more than a whisper. The weight of everything unsaid hangs in the air for a long, silent moment before bitterness claws into Draco’s lungs once more. “But evidently it was Potter you were really looking out for this whole time. He’s been telling everyone, you know,” he adds, at the roll of Snape’s eyes. “He’s just _desperate_ to clear your name. We’re all probably mere weeks away from reading exclusive interviews in the _Prophet_ , all about the truth of your allegiances and the power of love--”

“That is precisely what I hoped would not happen,” Snape says wearily, “though I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked. I had thought the ill-mannered brat might show some respect for the dead, but the self-righteousness of a Gryffindor’s grasp on nobility strikes where it is not wanted yet again.”

Draco stares at the portrait for a second before looking away, absentmindedly picking a book from one of the boxes - _The Second Curse: A Revised History of Witches’ Resistance Against Grindelwald_ \- and studying the cover. He rubs his thumb over a subdued image of a tired-looking woman with a fierceness in her eyes so severe it makes Draco feel a flash of guilt, makes him drop the book back into the box and look up again at Snape, whose expression has returned to its unreadable default. When Draco speaks, his voice is soft and pained.

“Did we ever even know you at all?” Draco asks.

“You did,” Snape says. “Very well, in fact. More than most.” Draco turns the answer over in his head a few times, tries to wring enough significance from it to make him feel anything aside from his rage and hurt, and fails. He kneels down and busies himself with arranging the boxes into a large open trunk for easy transport, taking longer than strictly necessary to secure its many locks. When he stands back up, Snape’s eyes are no longer on him but gazing curiously toward the next portrait frame where Dumbledore has appeared suddenly, giving Draco a disturbingly pleasant look. Draco leaves without another word.

As she escorts him out, McGonagall says, not exactly unkindly, “You are, like everyone else, invited to help rebuild the school.” She gestures to the students and alumni working in the Great Hall as they exit, and Draco sees figures in the distance repairing the greenhouses as he trudges across the grass behind her. He didn’t notice them earlier. The school is already in much better shape than it was the last time he was here. He feels abandoned, suddenly, sharply, as if the buildings sprouted legs and ran off, leaving him standing there alone with scars on his chest and a useless wand in the pocket of his jeans. 

“Of course, I can understand if you wish to opt out of these activities,” McGonagall says, glancing back at him. She slows her steps as they approach the gate and waits until he’s level with her to turn toward him, really look at him. Draco can’t keep himself from squirming under her shrewd gaze. He knows what she’ll see. He doesn’t like it. 

“Several of your classmates are planning to return to Hogwarts to make up classes they missed over the past year,” she says. “Special arrangements are being made with the Wizarding Examinations Authority to ensure that they can take and receive their N.E.W.T.s. You’re welcome to join them, if you’d like.” Draco chews on his bottom lip, flexes his grip on the trunk handle, balls his free hand into a fist at his side. 

“I’ll pass,” he says, not meeting McGonagall’s eyes.

\---

His parents tell him he’s getting a therapist. 

“Am I?” he says snidely, obnoxiously scraping his fork across his plate like he hasn’t since he was eight years old. “Fascinating. Am I also getting a unicorn horn in the center of my forehead?”

“Draco,” his mother says plaintively. He sets his fork down on the table. “Please. It’s the only thing we can think to do for your….”

“My condition?” Draco offers. He tries to keep his voice light this time, but judging by his mother’s wince, he doesn’t quite achieve it. 

“It could be from trauma,” his father says, looking down at his plate. “No one could blame you. There’s certainly been enough of that around here.” Lucius takes a small sip of wine and leans over when he places the glass down on the table again, positioning it slightly outside of his natural reach. Draco admires his recent efforts to curb what Draco’s sure is an unquenchable urge to just about drown himself in alcohol for the better part of the next decade, at least. 

“Promise me you’ll try,” his mother says. “Promise me you’ll do what she says.” Her knife falls from her trembling hand with a clatter against her plate. Draco promises.

Meriweather Oglethorpe is a hell of a name for the woman sitting across from him on 16th century upholstery. Her skin is as dark as Blaise’s but most everything else about her reminds him of Pansy, from her black bobbed hair to the way she crosses her ankles. Draco thinks it might be useful, the resemblance his therapist bears to both of his oldest and closest friends - his only friends, truthfully. It might help him open up to her like he swore to his mother he would. Eventually. Right now he’s sitting stiffly in his own 16th century armchair, picking absently at a stray thread with a broken fingernail, trying to decide how much he wants to tell her about the summer he’s had so far. It’s been three minutes since she asked him and he has yet to say anything, expected her to break after two, but she stays quiet, looking thoughtful and pleasant. 

“I’ve been feeling very,” he says finally, slowly, but for himself, not for her, not like he thinks she’s an idiot, “angry.”

“Naturally,” Meriweather says agreeably. “I only know what they published, of course, but from what I read, it’s clear that all of this has been very hard on you.”

“On me,” Draco repeats, half a question. Meriweather lifts her eyebrows just slightly.

“Hasn’t it?” she asks. Draco considers it. Yes, it has, obviously, or else he wouldn’t be here, trying to get his magic back. His hands wouldn’t be shaking, his parents’ hands wouldn’t be shaking, if it hadn’t been hard on them. And still….

“None of us died,” Draco says. “None of us got sent to Azkaban, after everything. None of us got punished for it. Not in any real way.”

“What do you mean by ‘real way’?”

“I mean,” Draco sighs and grits his teeth. “Everyone else _lost_ something. Or someone. A son, a brother, a sister, a mother, a friend. Not me.”

“You lost Vincent Crabbe,” Meriweather says. Draco purses his lips and says nothing. “You lost Gregory Goyle, too, in a way, and Severus Snape.” Draco holds his breath. “You lost the war.” Draco huffs out a laugh that would have been quite derisive if it had come from his mouth rather than his nose. “You lost your magic.”

“No one counts those,” Draco says.

“Do you?” Meriweather asks.

“No one counts those,” he says again, louder. “They don’t count.”

“Not even to you?” 

“It doesn’t matter what _I_ count,” Draco snaps, “if they don’t matter to anyone else. Nobody sees me and thinks, ‘Merlin, what a shit time that confirmed Death Eater had in the war, I sure hope he’s doing alright now.’ All that matters is I escaped justice. I should be in jail or, more ideally, dead, along with my parents, and they should have their kids or uncles or brothers back.” Meriweather taps a quill feather against her chin.

“This is still you playing everyone else, correct?” she says. “Or did you start speaking for yourself at some point in there?” Draco looks away from her, stares at a stain on the wallpaper that’s been there since he was six and slammed headfirst into the wall while disobeying his father’s perfectly reasonable rule about not riding toy broomsticks in the narrow corridors and ended up spitting out blood along with three of his baby teeth. Meriweather taps her quill feather some more. 

“I’ve got a homework assignment for you,” she says after another four minutes of silence. Draco finally looks at her again, eyebrows raised. “Get a job.” Draco blinks at her.

“A job?” he sneers. “I don’t need a job, in case you haven’t noticed.” He spreads his hands out, gesturing to their surroundings, elaborate and ornate and terrifically expensive. 

“I’ve noticed very much,” Meriweather says with the tiniest wry smile, “but you do actually need a job, because I’m telling you to get one.” 

“ _Why?_ ” Draco demands. There’s no way he’s doing this unless he gets a good reason for it, but Meriweather merely shrugs and smiles bigger.

“Call it a character-building exercise,” she says. Her smile widens but it also becomes less sardonic, for which Draco cannot find it in him to be grateful. He rolls his eyes and stops pulling at the loose thread on his chair, smooths it down with a gentle swipe of his palm.

“Fine.”

But the problem with Draco Malfoy trying to find a job is that he’s Draco Malfoy. He’s not welcome to inquire about employment anywhere on Knockturn Alley, where he’s seen as a traitor at best, or in Hogsmeade, where the business owners still remember him for putting Madam Rosmerta under the Imperius Curse all through his sixth year, and anyway it’s too close to Hogwarts for his liking. He briefly considers applying to a job in the Ministry or the Muggle world, but the thought of either makes the air in his lungs go all cold and heavy. 

Diagon Alley is mostly the same as Hogsmeade, if a little bit friendlier, strictly for the sake of appearances. Shopkeepers exchange terse pleasantries with him and let him pitch for a job before they tell him there are no positions available, even while Draco can see a “Now Hiring” sign right behind them. It’s a waste of his damn time. By late afternoon, he’s just meandering, looking into all these clean windows at smiling wizards and witches milling about, taking in the cheeriness of the storefronts. It’s almost as if the war never happened at all, and Draco can’t help but feel, like he had for those few moments at Hogwarts, that he’s been left behind while everyone else - whole streets, entire villages, all of Wizarding Britain - move on.

He fears he might drown in it.

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking until he notices that the shop in front of him is closed, a singular occurrence along this street. Draco glances up to verify what he already knows - Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes - before taking a few steps closer. From here, he can see George Weasley sitting alone in the dark by the register, staring down at the counter. Draco thinks at first that he’s doing some sort of paperwork, but one squint determines that there’s nothing on the glass surface at all, and another step closer shows that Weasley’s eyes are unfocused, his face shrouded in misery. All of it, even the apathetic slouch on the stool, seems so painfully familiar to Draco that he has to tear his gaze away. It lands on a scrap of parchment on the door, advertising for a job vacancy. “Sign below to be considered,” the sloppy little sign says, “Include your availability.” The list is unexpectedly short and Draco wonders if Weasley has been sitting there every day since the sign went up, fantastically morose and in full, albeit darkened, view of any passersby, making people too nervous to sign, afraid that the toxic gloom inside might seize them too. 

Draco signs his name before he can stop himself, writes, “Open availability” next to it. 

He’s not sure why he does it. He’s not expecting so much as an interview, much less a job, but he steps back and stares at the parchment, at his name on a Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes letterhead, and glances again through the window at Weasley, who is now tapping his fingers on the glass counter and staring at the wall. His expression hasn’t changed. Draco looks back at his name on the list, takes one step forward, ready to cross it out, but backs away again instead, pockets his quill with unnecessary force, and walks away.

He gets a package a few days later. The form letter inside has the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes logo on it and congratulates him on his new job. “Enclosed are two (2) sets of work robes. Additional sets will be provided after 30 days of employment,” it says, “which will begin on the first of September.” 

At the bottom, below the signature stamp which still includes Fred Weasley’s narrow scribbles, the other one, the living one, has scrawled, “You’ll look terrible in magenta.” Draco grimaces at the menacing message and swears under his breath when he unfolds magenta robes from the parcel. 

He does, indeed, look terrible in magenta.

\---

George Weasley is awful, as anyone could have predicted. Draco’s pretty sure he’s never actually spoken to this one directly until the day he started working at the shop - he spends that entire first day wracking his brain about it and all his brain supplies for him is a rather vivid memory of a particularly painful punch to his stomach in fifth year, a response to one of his cleverest taunts ever probably, that got both Weasleys _and_ Potter kicked off the Quidditch team and their brooms locked away, a victory which still brings Draco a spark of smug gratification, for all it objectively means absolutely nothing now - and frankly he was anxious that George would be expecting...strained conversation? Bickering, perhaps? Out and out arguments, surely? A huge row culminating in another violent bout of Muggle dueling? He never quite worked that out, but he didn’t have to anyway, because Weasley is obviously eager to do all the talking in this new, horrible dynamic. 

It starts out as the simple snapping of orders, with no words exchanged otherwise, which confuses Draco, who was anticipating a constant barrage of not altogether untrue slights against his character and whatever else. The slights do come, of course, but not until his fifth day there, when Weasley finally makes a remark so snide that it actually makes Draco’s skin itch for the six full seconds that pass until he spits back, something unmemorable and requiring no real thought, about the dust collecting in the Weasley family’s Gringotts vault or something equally banal, and it almost immediately turns into a shouting match that would have undoubtedly ended in a fight in which Draco could not defend himself, regardless of its Muggle or magic style, if customers didn’t open the door just as Weasley reached for his wand. A week and another dozen small rows interrupted by customers, Draco quits in a rage at the edge of yet one more fight, throws his ugly magenta robes at Weasley’s ugly freckled face and storms out into the street, only to return the next morning as if no dramatic declarations were made at all. Weasley says nothing besides a thick, unamused, “Thought you quit,” before he’s right back to yelling orders and growling out insults. 

“Why’d you go back?” Meriweather asks at their biweekly appointment. Draco looks down at his fingernails, still stained from the yellow and purple food pellets he spent an hour sorting through yesterday for the most finicky of the newborn Pymgy Puffs. His father asked him the same thing when he came home, glared at the offending proof of Draco being required to do any sort of manual labor and offered a spell to clean the worst of it away, assured Draco that he didn’t have to keep turning up every day to debase himself for a Weasley. But it wasn’t _for_ a Weasley, was the thing, and still is.

“I promised my mother,” Draco says. “I promised her that I’d actually… _try_. With you. With this...process.” He taps the side of his thumb against the armrest.

“Do you always keep the promises you make to her?” Meriweather asks. Her head is tilted just slightly, her bangs falling over her eyes. Draco looks up at her.

“Historically, no,” he says, “but I’m through with breaking them.” He digs his teeth into the inside corner of his bottom lip, adds, “I’m trying to be a better son,” and immediately cringes at the horrifically earnest tone. He swears he’s going to stop trying to sound casual about anything. It’s not like it ever works these days. Hell, if Blaise is to be believed, which Draco refuses to, it never worked at all, which is a god awful embarrassment and exactly why Draco prefers to cling to the great improbability that someone with a lifelong reputation of scathing honesty is lying about this one thing. Meriweather, at least, is good enough not to comment.

“She has done quite a lot for you,” she says thoughtfully. Draco scoffs. 

“That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?” he says, turning his head toward the window. It faces south, where the clouds that have been forming all morning are darkening, and he can see his parents walking together beside the hedge in brittle movements, his father clutching his mother’s arm as they pause at a rose bush. “She saved my life,” he says, “and my father’s, and her own, all at once. She saved our family. We’d all be dead, destroyed, if not for her.” In the garden, his father turns the roses from deep crimson to pale blue with a wave of the wand he purchased while they were in Bucharest and pulls from his newly repaired walking stick. Draco can just make out the eyebrow his mother raises at his father, and with a wave of her new wand from Odense, the roses turn bright yellow.

“It wasn’t just her, though, was it?” Meriweather asks. “She trusted someone enough to ask for help.” Draco screws his mouth to the side in a twisted sort of smirk as he looks back at her.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he says, averting his gaze to the floor when Meriweather blinks at him. “I’m not ready to talk about Snape yet.”

“That’s fine,” Meriweather says, “I don’t want you to talk until you’re ready.”

“If you were a Legilimens, then you wouldn’t have to wait,” Draco says, mostly just to be annoying. “In fact, that seems like quite a useful skill for a counselor. It seems a shame that you never picked it up.” Meriweather gives him an odd smile.

“Actually,” she says, eyes twinkling, “that’s a bit of a controversial topic in my field. I’m one of the few who’ve chosen _not_ to learn Legilimency. To me, it seems contrary to my very job description. If I’m to be effective in my role in our relationship, Draco, I require your trust. How can I expect you to trust me if you think I might barge into your mind at any moment and just force out the answers I want?” Draco nods, has to admit she has a point. “Besides,” she adds, “it’s not right to take advantage of your vulnerability and intrude like that. I consider it an issue of ethics, although there’s no set code of ethics for us. That’s one thing the Muggle world has on ours, at least. My mum has to follow some very strict rules.” Draco blinks at her, curious.

“Are you a Mud--ggleborn?” he asks. He flinches at his initial use of the word he’s been trying to work out of his vocabulary, but, after a moment - and rather bravely, he can’t help thinking - he looks up to meet Meriweather’s eyes, massively relieved to find that she looks amused more than anything.

“Does that change your opinion of me?” she asks. 

“No,” Draco says, no longer surprised by the truth of it. Meriweather leans forward in her chair, fixes him with a gaze so intense that he shifts backward instinctively.

“Since when?” she asks. He furrows his brow.

“I--I don’t know, exactly, I suppose...I mean, since...we lost,” he finishes weakly.

“And when did you lose your magic?” she asks, her dark eyes gleaming. Draco feels so far out of his depth that he’s starting to get that tight sensation in his chest again. He grips at the arms of his chair, squeezing until his knuckles go white. 

“I don’t know!” he says, flustered. “I told you, after H--”

“After Hogwarts, before the trials, yes,” Meriweather says. “But _think_ , Draco. Did you walk out of Hogwarts with your magic - yes or no?” 

“I don’t--” Draco starts, but the ferocity of her gaze make him stop, makes him actually think about the answer. 

A memory swims to the surface of his mind of Draco and his parents sitting at a table in the Great Hall, huddled closely together as house elves run around handing out food; of one of the elves, with a giant locket bouncing heavily on his chest with every step, spotting the Malfoys and bowing low, waving and greeting Draco’s mother; of his mother letting out an exhausted, wild little laugh and waving back while a tingling sensation floods Draco’s hands until his fingertips burn hot; of his narrow focus on the trembling of her hand in the air as both of Draco’s own go numb, heat leaving his fingers like it’s dripping out of him; of a sudden, bone-crushing feeling of abandonment pressing down on his shoulders, forcing his head down to look at his hands in his lap, palms up, and wondering why they’re shaking. 

“No,” he says quietly, “no, it left me at the table, mid-morning.” His voice sounds so distant, even to himself. “My mother hadn’t even thought up the deal we got yet.” Draco wishes Meriweather would stop staring at him. “Wh--why? What does that have to do with--”

“With your stance on blood purity?” she finishes for him. When he nods, she shakes her head, adopts a look of sincere compassion. “You’ve experienced trauma so severe, Draco, that it’s shaken you to the core, caused you to adopt a view you openly and sometimes violently scorned for all your life, chased your magic away. I can’t possibly imagine that it’s coincidence. Your body has got to reconcile with your mind.”

“Reconcile,” Draco whispers, swallows, nods once. He finally releases the grip he’s been holding steady on the chair and watches the color return to his quivering knuckles. He licks his lips, swallows again, stares down at the floor. “I don’t suppose that will be a pleasant, easy sort of process, will it?” He glances up long enough to see Meriweather sit back again, lift her mouth into a small smile. 

“Oh, no,” she says, sounding a bit amused, “I’m quite sure it will be extraordinarily inconvenient for you.” Draco thinks of his mother and sighs, hopes that it manages to convey both the sardonic sense of longsuffering and the true gut punch of tension relief that he feels in his blood in this moment. 

“ _Fine_ ,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’m already working for a Weasley. What other cruel and unusual exploitations must I endure at your command?”

On Meriweather’s suggestion, after she finally tricks him into confessing that Snape was practically his uncle, Draco begins spending a few afternoons a week at Spinner’s End. It’s not an especially forgiving exercise. He leaves work, angry and bitter after nine hours of either biting his tongue or lashing out until his voice is hoarse, and immediately goes to a miserable little house where he does more work. At Spinner’s End, at least, he’s unbothered by ugly Weasleys and stupid customers, although sometimes, surrounded by lonely artifacts of an impressively intricate web of lies that made up the sad life of one of the only handful of people who’ve ever truly cared about Draco, he thinks he might welcome the customers, and maybe even Weasley.

He strips the master bedroom and the guest room of their bedding on the first afternoon, briefly considers setting the pile of sheets and blankets and pillowcases on fire before he remembers he has no magic, and throws it all into a large crate that’s home to only a tiny dead spider when he finds it in a corner of the guest room, and then, since he’s here, he throws in nearly everything else in the guest room too. It all reeks terribly of rat still, and none of it is recognizably Snape’s, so Draco is eager to get rid of every bit of it. Perhaps with this one room empty, he thinks, as he rips the drawers out of the old bedside table, he can find it in him to keep going with the rest of the place, fix it up a little, make it something he can wash his trembling hands of and sell to someone else.

He’s struggling to grab all the hangers from the tiny closet to toss them into the crate when he sees it: a familiar colorful box on the top shelf, barely visible. Draco’s whole body comes to a halt before he moves in a daze to take hold of the box as clothes hangers fall all around his feet. He has to blow two big puffs of air across it to clear away most of the dust, but here it is - he couldn’t miss it - the Muggle children’s chemistry set he used to play with when he visited Spinner’s End without his parents. Snape, tired of repeatedly telling Draco that his store of potions ingredients and cauldrons weren’t playthings, bought this for him, told him, “To become a truly extraordinary potioneer, it helps to be acquainted with the basics of a similar art the Muggles use.” He worked through all thirty-nine “safety-tested experiments” with all seven chemicals that the box had to offer with Draco and, when Draco began to complain that there were no more left, bought more chemicals and let him make up his own experiments. It didn’t matter that some of them ended up with holes eaten through the carpet or resulted in a small explosion or two, Snape said - although he didn’t particularly enjoy having to contend with the mess and always made sure that Draco knew it - because those limitations were for Muggles only, and they had magic which was beyond all that.

“Is this what little Mudblood kids are learning right now?” Draco asked, poking at a salt crystal forming on a piece of parchment. 

“As I’ve told you, Draco,” Snape snarled, “your father and mother may allow you to shoot your mouth off however you want at the Manor, but in this house, you do not use that word.”

“Right,” Draco said, not even decent enough to feign sheepishness. It seemed an arbitrary rule then, but now, of course, it makes sense, just another part of the web that Snape spun all around Draco as he grew up under Snape’s watchful eye, too self-absorbed and foolish to notice. 

Potter does, as it turns out indeed, give an interview about Snape. It appears in the Sunday edition of _The Daily Prophet_ in the last week of September. Draco’s father and mother can’t look at it, but Draco sneaks it away before they can toss it, reads it four times in one sitting, brings it to Spinner’s End when he goes the next afternoon because he knows it would have Snape fuming and he’s feeling pretty angry himself. 

It’s pathetic, is the thing of it for Draco. All of it is pathetic - not just Snape’s whole story, which is pathetic enough alone, but Potter telling everyone Snape’s secrets, too, as if he _owes_ the man, as if _this_ is how Snape would want to be repaid, as if Snape would _ever_ want people to associate his name with Potter’s in any way. Unrequited love is one thing - pathetic on its own, Draco’s always thought, albeit with a blind spot where Pansy’s affection for him was concerned - but Snape positively _pined_ after that woman for his entire life, basically, even after she was dead and gone, and she never once loved him like that, didn’t want anything at all to do with him for years and years, and Snape’s whole epic tale of mystery and heroism hadn’t even begun until _after_ he’d gotten the love of his sad life killed and went crawling in hysterics to Dumbledore, begging for redemption and stability. It makes Draco roll his eyes. It makes Draco feel sick. It makes Draco sneer.

It makes Draco absolutely _furious_. 

He could tear his own hair out with the rage he feels standing in Snape’s old house, alone amongst dust and books and ghosts of lies, clutching the _Prophet_ in his shaking fist. He glances down, catches sight of Potter’s deceptively innocent face blinking up at him from the cover, and tears the paper up instead. He’s not sure when he starts screaming, but within minutes he’s knocked over a shelf and flipped a table, sent ancient books flying and torn a mildewy curtain from its rod, shouting like Snape is there in front of him, like Snape will stop him before he gets too out of control, like Snape will let him wear himself out and then raise one eyebrow and say, voice dry as the desert, “Now that you’ve gotten _that_ little childish display out of the way, would you like to sit down and get some answers like an adult?”

Snape isn’t there, though, and by the time Draco’s fury is dwindling, he’s destroyed the furniture, severely mistreated a shameful number of books, and collapsed onto the floor, his whole body convulsing with sobs so colossal and earth-shattering that he feels like they might break his ribs on their way up. He doesn’t realize that he’s been grasping at the carpet until the hurricane inside him quiets enough for him to open his swollen eyes and see that his fingernails are bloody and worn down, that the threadbare carpet has ripped away in shreds between his fingers, that the concrete underneath is streaked with blood.

“Did it make you feel better?” Meriweather asks later, glancing at his clenched hands.

“You know it didn’t,” Draco says thickly. He hasn’t met her eyes once this whole session. They sit in silence for a minute or two and Draco hates every moment of it.

“What about it upsets you so much, do you think?” she says finally, careful and soft. 

“Snape isn’t Potter’s to mourn,” Draco spits. 

“But you said Snape lied to you,” Meriweather says.

“He’s still not _Potter’s_ ,” Draco says, squeezing his fists tight, fingertips stinging where his worn down nails dig helplessly into his palms. “He’s _ours_. He was _our_ friend, he was _my_ godfather, he was _ours_ \- and Potter took a secret that Snape kept _for a reason_ and made it all about _him_ , as fucking usual, and we never even got to go to the _funeral_ that Potter had the gall to plan himself.” He stops suddenly, takes a deep breath, and another, stretches out his hands and sees that he’s drawn blood, again. He looks up at Meriweather for the first time in nearly an hour. Her expression is unreadable. 

“Draco,” she says quietly, “that’s why I asked you to spend more time at Spinner’s End. _That’s_ where you mourn, _that’s_ how you grieve.” Draco swallows, nods. “And not just for Snape, but for you, for your family, for what happened to you, what you went through.”

“I understand,” he says.

“You’ve only just started, you know,” she points out. He says nothing, looks down at the ground again. “It’s going to be a long, difficult process. You’re going to feel like stopping sometimes.”

“But I can’t, can I?” Draco says, glancing up to meet Meriweather’s eyes for a moment. She gives him a sad little smile. He sighs, looks back down at his trembling, bloody hands. “Alright, then. What’s next?”

\---

A routine. That’s Meriweather’s recommendation, to help ease his anxiety and mood swings. (“‘ _Mood swings_ ’?” Draco repeated, offended and dubious, when she said it. “I don’t have any idea what you’re on about. I’ve been like this for ages.” It took him a long moment, a slow lift of her brow, and then he said, “Oh.”) And so, suddenly aware that there’s nothing _normal_ about the past several years he’s spent hurtling into underdeveloped rages at the slightest provocation and sinking into inexplicable melancholy for days on end, he takes to Meriweather’s suggestion with his habitual intensity.

He wakes up at 7 every morning. He showers. He cooks breakfast - he’s better at it without magic, actually, than he was with, but he never says that to his parents. He goes to work via Portkey that lands him just outside the Leaky Cauldron at 8:23 exactly. He shuts his mouth, bites his tongue, breathes deeply, does nothing more than let his extreme irritation at everything about his boss and his employment show on his face until 5:30 when he whips off the disgusting magenta robes the moment he steps outside the shop. 

He takes another Portkey to Spinner’s End on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, only ever means to be there for one hour but always gets lost in his work of pulling up old dirty carpets by hand, dragging beaten up furniture outside, sorting through decades of Snape’s secondhand clothes, dusting every surface. On those evenings, his mother or father will Apparate to the doorstep at 7:30, will take one step inside and call, “Dinner, Draco,” and step back outside to wait for Draco to lock up. He has dinner with his parents at 7:45. After dinner, they take tea and pudding in the parlor on the second floor, the way they did before the war, and they talk about their days, and Draco tells them how insufferable Weasley is, and his parents tell him what they read in _The Daily Prophet_ , the way they did before the war. They dutifully ignore the scattered clinking of tea cups against plates, unwelcome indicators of the tremors that still control their hands. Then his mother disappears into the library, his father retires to his office, and Draco goes to bed. 

It’s on a free Sunday afternoon when he’s managed to convince his parents to join him for a broom ride around the Manor grounds before the October weather officially gets too bad to enjoy it when his father says, in a tone Draco recognizes as too casual to be genuine, “Your mother and I have been considering participating in therapy as well.” Draco pauses as he hands off his mother’s broom to her.

“Yes,” he says, “that...would be good, I think.”

“Yes?” his mother says. Draco blinks at her for a moment, looks from her face to his father’s and back again, curious at the way they’re discussing this. It can’t be fear of seeming weak enough to need counseling - the war knocked that all out of them, broke them down to parts, bore all the ugliest and most vulnerable insides to one another until they all truly knew what each of them was made of. And if it isn’t that, then...he realizes it as he takes in the uncertainty in their eyes: they’re asking him for his opinion, his approval, not as their son but as someone who knows better than them. 

“Yes,” Draco says again. He gives them a one-shouldered shrug, smiles a little. “It’s helping me, at least. It’s not a straight line, the progress, I mean. Some days are worse than the day before, but...I’m feeling...not great, I suppose, but better.” It’s an understatement, really. Where he had, merely two months ago, thought of his future and saw a vast, unending expanse of blank, gray nothingness, occasionally broken up by blank, _black_ nothingness, now he thinks of his future and sees uncertainty, yes, but also function, clouds, at least, and a clear day here and there even, a vast, unending expanse still, but not nothing. It’s the not nothing that makes the real difference. 

“I mean,” he continues, his smile falling despite his best efforts, “I got a reprieve from...from the worst of it, I think, because I got to go to school, I wasn’t here the whole time with...them. And you were in the First War besides, so I would think it would do you both some good, too.” He swallows, looks down at the ground. “It’s just talking, mostly. We Malfoys and Blacks - we’re good at that.” He glances up at them again. “But, fair warning: Meriweather will give you homework.” His father laughs, a real one of pure amusement, the first in years. The unexpected sound pierces Draco’s heart, makes his eyes water. He moves to face the wind as his mother mounts her broom. She turns back to look at him and his father, her eyes wide again, all feigned innocence this time. 

“Shall we make this more interesting then?” she says, and opens her hand to allow a Snitch to flutter free. His father groans as it flits around their heads, but Draco’s already kicked up into the air, flexing his shaking fingers.


	3. Chapter 3

Cokeworth, where Spinner’s End sits, was once a great town, bustling and lovely, full of friendly working-class families and promise. Draco doesn’t _know_ this, but he knows this, by the way the sweet brick houses line up identically all around town, and the way the little park a few streets over has no fence, and the way the river babbles at passersby. It was a kind, colorful place once, lively and joyful, and Draco wishes, sometimes, on days when the Portkey lands him a long walk’s worth away from Spinner’s End, that he could have seen it then. It’s all well past charming now, the terraced houses in various degrees of disrepair for blocks on end, the park in squalor, the river littered and polluted. The mill, disused for decades now, surely, casts a long shadow over the town from one end to the other, condemning its scant remaining inhabitants to loneliness and mistrust. 

Every face he’s seen looking out at him with narrowed eyes through dirty windows as he passes has been elderly. He’s sure that they, like Snape, grew up in Cokeworth, have nothing but bad memories of the place, but can’t afford to move away or otherwise refuse to, and are now determined to die here, miserable and alone, like Snape would have, if things were different. It’s not a mark against the town, necessarily. Draco likes that no one here knows who he is, likes the quiet stillness of the streets, likes that he’s not expected to hold even a menial conversation. 

He’s taken utterly by surprise, then, when he’s unlocking the door to Snape’s old house and a young woman with olive-toned skin and thick brown hair peeks out from the house next door, gives him an alarmingly bright smile, and says, “Hello! So do you live there now?” Draco fumbles with the key. 

“Uh,” he says. “Yes.” The girl steps outside and closes her door behind her, which Draco recognizes as telltale signs that she wants to continue speaking, but he’s still too much in shock to feel any dread or irritation. 

“Are you...his nephew?” she asks. Draco swallows, considers correcting her.

“Yeah,” he says instead.

“Usually he’s home for the summer,” she says, biting her lip nervously, “I suppose he’s a teacher, but I haven’t seen him at all since August last year. Is he...is he okay?” Draco blinks at her. Her face has fallen significantly since her initial greeting. There’s honest concern in her hazel eyes, obvious worry in the way she’s crossing her arms and cradling her elbows. He clears his throat.

“Uh, no,” Draco says. “He’s dead, actually. He died. In May.” She frowns, her eyes widening with sympathy.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says. “How did he die? If you don’t mind me asking, that is, I don’t mean to be--”

“He was murdered,” Draco says, which surprises him. He doesn’t mean to say it, honestly. It just sort of...tumbles out, like it had been waiting for a stranger to ask. It’s a better answer than “He was in a war,” at least, which would be impossible to explain to a Muggle, probably.

“Oh my god,” she says, looking horrified, “I’m _so_ sorry.” She takes the cross pendant of her necklace between her fingers and drags it back and forth across the gold chain. “I didn’t really know him well,” she says, “I mean, like I said, he was only home during summer, and he kept to himself mostly, but he was a good enough neighbor.” She looks back at the closed door of her own house. “Helped me with a few things in there the summer I moved in a couple years ago, after my granddad passed.” She turns back to him with a small smile and holds out her hand. “Well, anyway, I’m Calliope,” she says. Draco’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“Like the muse? Of epic poetry?” he asks. He sticks his hand out and shakes hers after a moment, all etiquette forgotten at the sound of her name. Calliope’s grinning now, giving him a sheepish little shrug.

“Well done,” she says. “My family’s Greek, you see, so, big on the mythology. I’ve got a brother called Apollo, another brother called Kronos, and a sister called Selene.” Draco finds himself fighting a smile, and then gives up.

“I’m Draco,” he says. “My mother’s family had theme names too - all constellations. Well, save for her. ‘Narcissa’ would probably fit in better with yours, I would imagine.”

“So she was making up for hers with yours then?” Calliope asks, eyes glittering. Draco shrugs.

“Perhaps, yeah.” The key jangles against its ring in his hand and he suddenly remembers where he is and why. He glances at the door and feels his smile fall before he looks back at Calliope.

“Oh, I don’t want to keep you,” she says awkwardly, gesturing towards his door. “I just wanted to see about Snape, and introduce myself. I’ve seen you pop in and out of there, I know you’ve been working on it. Are you planning on moving in permanently? Or trying to sell it?”

“Oh,” Draco says. He honestly hasn’t considered it in several weeks. The original plan, he supposes, was to fix it up and sell it, but now, the thought of it, the mere mention, prods rather painfully at his ribs. “I’m not sure yet.” Calliope nods, as if she understands completely, and Draco thinks that maybe she really does.

“Well,” she says, stepping back towards her own house, placing one hand on the doorknob, “if you ever need help with anything, or want to have tea or talk or something, you know where to find me. It’s no inconvenience, I swear.” Draco nods, looks down as he sticks the key back in the lock.

“Thanks,” he says. He hopes she knows he means it. It’s been a long time since his voice has practiced a tone of genuine gratitude. Calliope gives him a smile again and shrugs.

“‘s’no problem,” she says, opening her door and edging inside. “It’s nice to have some life in this place, really.”

\---

Halloween is a particularly horrible day at work. Weasley decides halfway through the morning that the decorations aren’t right and snaps at Draco to add another four vomiting pumpkins and float them in the air in some sort of oafish pattern throughout the shop. Draco, having successfully avoided Weasley discovering his lack of magic thus far, disguises it once again in insolence, which leads, as expected, to a row in which Draco actually participates for the first time in weeks, because his patience is worn thin and his nerves cut jagged from the nightmares that have begun to plague him. It ends with a pumpkin exploding above Draco’s head and a candle smacked out of the air in Weasley’s direction, all before lunchtime. The one small mercy is that the shop closes early for the holiday, and Draco has some extra afternoon hours to spend at Spinner’s End before dinner. 

He’s been cataloging Snape’s books these past few visits. Most of them are potions-related, which Draco sets aside in a “Keep” pile without a second thought. Several others center on the Dark Arts. These Draco holds closed in his trembling hands, grip tight, and stares down at their covers, trying to determine how they make him feel. _Terrified_ is always the first one, the most easily identified. It’s the foundation, the undercurrent of all the rest, which usually includes _wary_ and _uneasy_ , in varying degrees, and _tense_ , nearly always. But then, faithfully, once he’s stood with it long enough, counted down the other emotions, there’s also the one he wishes would stop rearing up: _intrigue_. He drops those books as soon as he feels it, shoves them into another pile to reshelve later, turns away and grabs a harmless book on charms or transfiguration instead until his anxiety ebbs. He’s been pretending that he can run from it, but he knows that the dangerous spark of curiosity for Darkness is part of him, an unchangeable and unwanted feature of his physiology. It’s pretend, that’s all, and he knows it is; he’ll deal with it eventually, root it out, perhaps, with Meriweather’s help, or else learn to ignore and resist it, but he can’t bear to address it just yet. Not today.

Today, from a shelf in Snape’s old bedroom, he takes down a small book with an intricately beautiful cover, black and white velvet, ropes of calligraphy that he can’t parse. There’s no title that he can discern, especially on such a thin spine, so he chooses chance, holds it far from his face, and cracks it open. 

He gasps, collapses to sit on the bed.

It’s a photo album of his parents’ wedding day. 

His mother, young and beautiful and bright, twirls in her dress for pages. She smiles out at Draco, at the photographer - Snape, he realizes with considerable surprise - and he swears he can hear her enchanting laughter bubble off the page from a few of the photos. In one, closer up than the first several, she pulls Snape from behind the camera and into the picture with her. He looks alarmingly young, must be no older than Draco is now, and inordinate worry still shows on his face, but Narcissa kisses him overzealously on his cheek and coaxes a true smile from him even as he moves immediately to wipe the wine red lipstick stain off his skin. In other photos, a middle-aged woman with a headscarf loosely framing her brown face - Auntie Shafiq, a realization which knocks the air from Draco’s lungs - fusses over Narcissa’s dress, waves her wand to overlay the bustle of the white chiffon skirt with delicate black lace. 

His father, then, young as well, handsome and proud, paces a different room for a few pages. Snape managed to catch him anxiously wringing his hands, putting on and taking off his black dress robes, rolling and unrolling the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. Draco watches as Lucius absentmindedly rubs his thumb over the Dark Mark on his arm and clasp his hand around the back of his own neck. He’s never seen his father like this, even during the war. It’s a different type of nervousness, he thinks, something charming. This is Draco’s father wanting everything to go smoothly but accepting that it’s all out of his hands, looking out at his future and seeing only his bride, hoping to never let her down but knowing he will, needing her to hold him together and praying she’s as strong as he’s always thought. At some point, it seems, on the day, Snape put down the camera to button his own cufflinks, and Lucius picked it up, caught Snape’s acknowledging eye roll and begrudging smile before pulling Snape into one with him, just like Narcissa did, even kissing his cheek dramatically, too, and throwing back his head in an uproarious laugh when Snape sighs with his full body and twists away, rubbing his face again.

Draco gets lost in the pages that follow, in the fact that his father still looks at his mother now the same way he did on their wedding day, in the simple joy on his mother’s face when his father kisses her slender hand before slipping the ring on her finger. It’s a tiny wedding. Draco always knew it had been small, but he never realized just how private it was - only parents, Auntie Shafiq, and Snape. No Bellatrix, Draco notes, and no Andromeda, unsurprisingly, who by then was disowned, and no Sirius, obviously, and no Regulus, at Hogwarts still, only fifteen and not quite yet a Death Eater. None of Draco’s grandparents feature prominently in any of these photos, which is how he knows this was meant to be a personal gift, something to make Lucius and Narcissa truly happy. Before he became a double agent, before he started lying to them in a way that really mattered, _Snape_ did this to make Draco’s parents happy. 

Draco closes the album, clutches it tightly in his hands and stares down at the cover, the way he does with the Dark Arts books peppered around this house. He could just take it back to the Manor tonight, hand it over to his parents before dinner. It’s theirs, anyway, and somehow Snape never got around to giving it to them, or else they had it once and he borrowed it back for some reason and it still never made its way home. But...it was in Snape’s house, on Snape’s bookshelf, and that makes it Draco’s, technically, he reasons, and he wants it, right now. Just to have. A piece of something he needs but can’t yet identify. He holds it to his chest and goes downstairs, places it carefully in his bag. It will get to his mother and father, eventually. 

Falling asleep is an accident. He goes back upstairs and sits on the bed again, intent on sorting through more books, but when he stretches out on his side among the books, telling himself it’s for the sake of comfort, the weight of his eyelids is too much to overcome. It’s only for a couple of hours, but it’s the sweetest sleep he’s had in over a week.

\---

“You didn’t tell me you were having nightmares,” Meriweather says, with just the slightest hint of accusatory tone in her voice as her jaw tenses. It’s a bit startling, honestly, the way Draco keeps having to reorient himself in these appointments, to remind himself that he’s not back at school in the common room and that Pansy and Blaise have not - as they have, in a number of ways, been threatening to do since the three of them were very small children - merged into one scarily perceptive person who can see past the stone gray walls of Draco’s eyes with minimal to no effort. Draco wonders occasionally if he isn’t simply hallucinating Meriweather, and if in reality he has been in St. Mungo’s for months or even years, and when he thinks he’s seeing Meriweather is actually when Pansy and Blaise come to visit their poor mad friend. 

“They were only sporadic until two weeks ago,” he says, irritated. “I didn’t think there was anything to tell.”

“What are they about?”

“What the hell do you _think_ they’re about?” Draco snaps. “The Dark Lord lived in this house, Bellatrix Lestrange invaded my mind and taught me how to see into hers, I was forced to torture both grown men and children, I was threatened with not just my own death but the torture and death of my whole family should I fail to kill the most powerful wizard in recent history - it’s not exactly like there’s a dearth of suitable material. Take your bloody pick.” Meriweather is silent for several merciful moments before she asks a terrible question.

“What did he say he’d do to your mother?”

Draco’s hands, already shaking violently, clench instantaneously into fists so tight that he can feel the skin of his palms tearing under his own fingernails. “I’m not going to talk about that,” he says through gritted teeth. “Not ever.”

“But you obviously can’t forget it, if it’s in your nightmares,” Meriweather says. She sounds unaffected, untouched, and Draco’s eyes are wet and stinging. He’s never felt such envy.

“Surely you’re not this stupid. What else do women get threatened with in war?” Draco hisses, holding her gaze even as hot angry tears well up in his eyes and his stomach churns. His mind is fogged with fury. There’s a reason he’s locked this memory away since that night on the astronomy tower. The mere thought of it is piercing agony. “He said he’d make my father and I watch.”

“But that didn’t happen, did it?” Meriweather asks softly. Draco could throw something at her.

“ _No_.” He can feel blood dripping between his fingers. “And I was supposed to be _grateful_ for that. That was supposed to be _mercy_ ,” he spits. A familiar tightness is rising in his chest, slowly filling his lungs, clawing at his throat, and he’s desperate to run from it, but through the shrill crescendo in his head, he hears Meriweather’s voice, blinks at her and sees Pansy, sees Blaise. 

“Draco,” she says, gentle, stable, leaning forward in her chair, “Draco. Are you with me?”

“Yes,” he breathes, even though he might be lying. 

“Think about Spinner’s End,” she says, “think about falling asleep there.” He does as she says. He thinks about the blandness of it, the quiet, the stillness. He thinks about the bedroom, the surprisingly comfortable bed, the vague comforting scent of old books. Meriweather says, “Tell me about it,” so he does, talks his way out of this. He tells her about his plans for the living room - new carpeting, new furniture, new paint on the walls - and what he might do with the guest room, about Calliope - two sugars in her tea but no milk, dead helpful with Muggle home improvement tools with intimidating names like _hammer_ and _wrench_ \- and how he’d like to see the town revive itself. It’s nothing he’s voiced before; he thinks Meriweather can tell. By the time his mind has cleared, by the time relief is sweeping palpably through his body and calm is dawning warmly in his chest, his voice is rough. He loosens his fists, flexes his fingers, turns his bloody palms up and stares down at them. 

“May I?” Meriweather asks, nodding at his hands. He sits forward, extends his arms to her. She cups her right hand under his left, her steady palm a safe harbor for his trembling knuckles, and draws a figure eight in the air just above his wounds with her fingers, strokes softly over them as his skin repairs itself. “I wanted to become a Healer, once upon a time,” she says quietly. “Started the training and everything. Still remember some of it.” He looks up at her as the blood disappears with a swipe of her thumb and she moves to tend to his other hand. 

“Why’d you stop?” he asks.

“I decided I was up for a bigger challenge,” she says, examining his palm. “I had rather a magnificent thirst to prove myself, you see, and Healing just wasn’t enough for me. It’s only about the body, really, and only once damage has already been done, and I’ve always thought it was more meaningful and effective to go after the mind.” She leans back and pats his hand twice, satisfied. Draco squints at her, fitting her words and actions into a little puzzle in his head.

“Were you in Slytherin, Meriweather?” he asks. She smiles at him, looking quite smug.

“As a matter of fact, I was,” she says.

“A Muggleborn Slytherin,” Draco mutters. “Merlin. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t great, at times,” she says, shrugging. “You know as well as I do that Slytherins look out for one another above all else at Hogwarts, but it is more than a bit unsettling to hear your only friends at school calling others like you ‘Mudblood’ and speaking so harshly about people like your parents.” Draco bites his lip, tries to look sympathetic, but probably just looks fairly ashamed. 

“Of course, it could’ve been much worse,” Meriweather adds with a look of mild disgust. “I could have been in Gryffindor, for example.” Draco’s sudden laugh hurts his throat. Meriweather smiles. “Draco, I think you should consider trying to live at Spinner’s End. You’re obviously beginning to think of it as yours. It will be good for you, carrying out all your plans for it, _making_ it yours. You even have a neighbor who can help you.” Draco is quiet for a minute, looks down at his lap, thinking.

“I can’t imagine that my parents would be especially forgiving of such a decision,” he says carefully. Meriweather hums.

“I’ll take care of that,” she says.

\---

Draco’s secret is found out after a long day of stock and reorganization. 

Weasley leaves the door open all day, and Draco shivers with each gust of chilly November wind swirling inside, his jaw clenched and shoulders tense, as ever. Nothing he does is good enough for Weasley, because Weasley either doesn't know what the hell he wants, or is an imbecile, or just wants to see Draco suffer through sheer unbearable annoyance, or, most likely, all three. 

“Restack the Broom Broom Kits,” and Draco does. 

“Count up all the Comb-a-Chameleons,” and Draco does.

“Throw out the old love potions,” and Draco does.

“Move these Anti-Gravity Hats to that free shelf across the shop,” and Draco does. 

But also: “No, not like that, you idiot,” and Draco sighs, grits his teeth, reorganizes the boxes for the third time.

“I don’t trust your numbers. Do it again,” and Draco sighs, grits his teeth, takes the count again, again, again.

“There can’t have been _that_ many past expiration. Go through the bin and double check every box,” and Draco sighs, grits his teeth, starts sifting through trash.

“Why the hell aren’t you just using magic? You’re wasting time, Malfoy, and I hope you don’t think you’re getting overtime pay for this--” and Draco snaps.

“As if I _need_ overtime pay, you rags-to-riches rodent.” He throws the hats he’s been carrying in his arms to the floor and whips around to face Weasley, eyes blazing. Weasley wobbles backward for the briefest moment. Draco watches as the initial flash of surprise on his face transforms into malicious delight, notices Weasley’s shoulders relax.

“ _Finally_ ,” Weasley says. “Yes, let’s have it out! What did you in? Was it the bit about you not using magic? Because I’ve been wondering--”

“A daring feat, indeed,” Draco sneers, “considering the pain maintaining a single thought must cause you. I suppose they all just leak out that hole in the side of your head now.”

“I’ve been _wondering_ ,” Weasley continues, raising his voice, “why exactly you do so much work around here like a Muggle.” A chill goes down Draco’s spine even as heat rises to his neck. Weasley raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t think I’d ever see a _Death Eater_ who prefers the Muggle way of doing things.”

“I _don’t_ ,” Draco says, gritting his teeth again. “You’re horribly mistaken, as usual. Not that it ever seems to bother you. It happens so much it must simply roll right off your back by now--”

“Mistaken, am I?” Weasley says, his whole face gleaming with malevolence. Not ever taking his eyes off Draco, he grabs a Lucky Dip box from the shelf next to him and says, “Defend yourself then,” and throws. Draco, equally determined to not break eye contact, reaches out and catches it as it approaches his head, Seeker’s reflexes pulsing through him alongside his anger and fear.

“You’re such a goddamn child,” Draco spits. “Should I just smash this on the floor then, since you obviously don’t care about your own stock?” Weasley rolls his eyes and pulls his wand from his pocket.

“Do what you want with it,” he says, waving his wand lazily at the shelf. “And all the rest.” Another box floats into the air, propels itself toward Draco. “I can just remake them. _I_ don’t have a problem with using magic.” 

Draco seethes as box after box lifts into the air and catapults in his direction. Some he catches like the first, others he swats out of the air; after five, he starts hurtling them back at Weasley, who stops them abruptly in their path and makes them fall to the ground with a swish of his wand. “They’ll stop once you use magic,” Weasleys says in a grating singsong voice. “Come on, Malfoy, just take out your wand. Prove me wrong.” Draco’s sweating, anxious and livid. The boxes are coming faster now, and soon it will be impossible for him to--

“ _Fine_ ,” he snaps, pulling his wand from his jacket, close to his heart. He knows what the outcome will be, but still, maybe, he hopes. He _hopes_. 

“ _Protego_ ,” he says, but nothing happens. Weasley blinks, eyes narrowed. Draco bats a few boxes away, tries a different spell, and another, and another. Protective, repelling, defensive, repelling, defensive, protective. With each humiliating failure, Weasley’s brow furrows more, and Draco feels his throat closing up. _Maybe_ , he thinks, _maybe just something more simple._

“ _Finite incantatem_ ,” he tries, a last desperate bid. He has to duck the oncoming Lucky Dip box, but the rest of them behind it come to a halt and drop from the air. For one wild, heart-stopping moment, Draco thinks it was him, that his magic was back and just a touch misguided, but then a different wand comes into clear focus, held up steadfast in the air by Weasley, who is wearing an unreadable expression. Draco feels as though he’s been stung.

“You’ve lost your magic,” Weasley whispers into the tense silence.

“Congratulations on figuring it out,” Draco says, pocketing his worthless wand again, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples and taking deep, slow breaths. “Now go on. Say whatever’s on your empty, uninspired mind. Tell me just how ironic it is for someone like me to lose my magic. It’s so terribly amusing that I spent my whole life believing that anyone not born to magical parents wasn’t a real wizard or witch and didn’t belong here and now I, a respectable Pureblood, find myself without magical abilities. I’m sure that you, as everyone would if they knew, deem it profoundly hilarious that a former Death Eater is now as good as a Squib. It’s nothing I haven’t already thought! Just _say it_.” 

He drops his hands to his sides, balls them into shaking fists. He gives Weasley a reluctant, resentful look, takes in his open mouth, the tight lines under his eyes, his searching gaze. Realization hits Draco square in the stomach, makes him feel ill, sure he’s going to be sick all over the floor of the shop, all over the newly damaged merchandise. 

Because Weasley almost looks as if he feels _sympathy_ for Draco. 

It’s all Draco can do to keep from screaming. Instead, he swings his arm over to the shelf next to him, sweeps half a dozen stacks of products off. He doesn’t check to see if Weasley’s stopped looking at him like that, just turns on his heel and stalks out of the shop, humiliation burning like acid in his throat.

\---

He shows up the next day, right on schedule, because he’s afraid of what it might do to him if he pauses long enough to consider that he could, perhaps, be a bit _too_ obsessive about his routine. He looks Weasley directly in the eyes as he walks in, wordlessly daring him to say something. 

Weasley says nothing. 

Draco gets to work.

\---

His mother’s birthday is tomorrow and he finally decides what to give her while walking through Diagon Alley on a cloudy morning on the way to the shop. He was looking through the photo album again last night, for probably the dozenth time, and noticed a few familiar jars and bottles on the vanity in the background of the third photo. Pretty little pink and purple fractal glass vessels, which Draco knows were filled with very particular concoctions incorporating billywig sting slime and boom berry juice and liquified asphodel root, among other things. Draco must have spent most evenings of the first six years of his life at his mother’s feet while she sat at her vanity performing this ritual, applying these skincare oils and elixirs to her face and neck with well-practiced dignity while Draco babbled and peppered her with questions about what she was doing and played Wizard’s Chess on a children’s set against his father. He realized, scrutinizing the photo, that he can’t remember the last time he saw his mother purchasing any new luxuries like that. She’s barely left the Manor since they returned from traipsing all over Europe looking for wands except to retrieve Draco from Spinner’s End, so he doubts she’s made any visits to Madam Primpernelle’s Beautifying Potions in the broad daylight of Diagon Alley. 

But Draco does, on his way back to the Portkey after work. He has no need to dawdle or look around, would know the exact bottles and jars with his eyes closed. He’s at the counter in the center of the shop with an open bag of money in just two minutes, ready to pay and get home, when the sales assistant looks up at him and says, “Oh.” Her eyes dart down to the counter and then to the bag in his hand, the Galleons he’s closed his fingers around, and back up to his face before she says, “Your money’s not welcome here.”

Draco blinks. 

“What?” he says. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” the girl replies primly, motioning for the customer behind Draco to come forward. Draco steps in front of the older man, ignores his grunt of offense, and locks eyes with the shop assistant.

“Money is money,” he says loudly. He sticks his hand back into the bag and pulls out more coins, says, “Look, I’ll even pay double, alright?” The girl’s expression darkens, her mouth pulling taut.

“Death Eaters aren’t welcome at Madam Primpernelle’s,” she says, placing his items below the counter, “even if they did manage to avoid conviction and a prison sentence.” She may as well have reached over the counter and slapped Draco across the face. The man behind him shoves Draco aside with a sneer and Draco steps away, a chill in his veins. He moves in a daze through the small crowd of people busying about the door, exits out into the street. He turns to glance back inside, shakes his head, and turns back, looks down at the cobblestone street as he tucks the bag of money into his coat. When he lifts his eyes again, Weasley is there mere feet from him, horrid orange dragon leather jacket zipped up to his throat, his gaze piercing.

“Who’s it for?” Weasley asks. Draco’s jaw clenches. He swallows.

“My mother,” he says, with an internal sigh. Weasley doesn’t need to know anything about Draco’s life, and Draco doesn’t mean to tell him. It’s just that...Draco is tired, really, and this is easier. He shrugs and looks away. “Her birthday’s tomorrow.” He can feel Weasley’s eyes on him still, is about to just leave - he’s cutting it close with the Portkey schedule at this point anyway, and he’ll figure something else out for his mother’s gift - when he sees Weasley kick at the ground. 

“Wait here,” Weasley says, and brushes past Draco, who spins around in confusion. He watches through the windows as Weasley ducks into Madam Primpernelle’s and takes his place in the short line at the counter. When he reaches the till, he smiles charmingly at the shop assistant. Draco can’t tell what Weasley’s saying to her, but he sees him tap at the countertop, toss in a shameless wink, and the girl looks pleased as she brings out the bottles and jars that Draco tried to buy mere minutes ago from under the counter. Weasley pulls his own money bag from his pocket and counts out the amount, even adds another Galleon - and another wink - so the girl giftwraps the lot. By the time Weasley’s exiting the shop with a beautifully-adorned box in hand, Draco honestly thinks all power of speech has left him.

“There,” Weasley says, pushing the box at Draco’s chest until he takes it in his hands. “I’ll just take it out of this week’s pay.” He begins to walk away, and he’s already disappeared into the rush hour Diagon Alley crowd before Draco finds his voice again.

\---

December comes with a sharp, unwelcome chill. Calliope gets a bad cold and Draco, feeling a bit helpless and also at a real loss about how to behave like a friend to someone who hasn’t known him since he was an infant, goes through the cupboards full of potions supplies and makes her a little bottle of Pepper-Up Potion, passes it off to her as an old family home remedy with strict instructions to sleep for a few hours after drinking it in hopes that she won’t notice the steam emitting from her ears. It’s the first time he’s made a potion in eight months, and he’d forgotten how much he’s always liked potion-making, how adept he is with a cauldron. 

On Christmas Eve, the Malfoys attend church, like they used to do every year, like they haven't since the incident at the Department of Mysteries. They're not religious, but Draco’s father adores the drama and ritual of Catholic and Orthodox services, near enough to their peak on the twenty-fourth of December to satisfy him, and Draco’s mother loves an excuse to wear dresses that are both high-neck and floor-length. They go to a Greek Orthodox church this time - Draco chooses it, thinking vaguely of Calliope - and Draco spends most of the service looking around at the iconography, mentally quizzing himself on the names and patronages of the saints that he learned as a child. Saint Sophia and her daughters for martyrs, Saint Lucy holding a pair of eyes on a plate for the blind, Saint Andrew with his net for fishermen, Saint Agnes and a lamb for chastity, Saint Demetrius in his armor for peasants and shepherds...He doesn’t do too badly, considering it’s been ages since he’s even thought about this sort of thing, although he can’t for the life of him remember the name of the fellow slaying the dragon, no matter how long he stares at the painting. 

He and his parents sneak out as the wave of congregants approach the altar for communion, and the next day he finds implausible joy in the aching twist of his heart that comes from watching their faces as they unwrap the photo album. They gasp their way through the pages, marveling at their captured youth, laughing over the dour expressions on _their_ parents’ faces, missing Snape wordlessly in the silences that accompany each delicate turn of a page. Draco takes in the way they look at each other, even more in love now than they were in those photos, and god, it’s like he’s thirteen years old again, catching his parents’ exchanged glances and knowing, somehow, that he’ll never have that with anyone, that a love like that is so rare that it can’t possibly occur twice in the same millennium, that the best he can hope for is a convenient marriage to someone whose company he doesn’t detest. He has to look away from them. 

December gives way to an unusually warm January without a fight, which just means that any snowfall that manages to stick to the ground in Cokeworth immediately turns to slush, mixes unattractively with the dirt and mud in the dips in the street and melts entirely by mid-morning. It only serves to make Draco’s feet cold, even through his shoes, as he walks around town. He stands in total ignorance in the launderette near the park for thirty full minutes before he finally treks back to Calliope’s house and recruits her help with the alien contraptions there, grimaces and agrees when she laughs at him and calls him spoiled, because it’s true, and also because he can’t just come out and say he’s never seen one of these things before but he bought a wallet just so he could store his Muggle coins for this very purpose, doesn’t that count for something, Calliope. No, he saves that for Meriweather instead, who assures him, in a tone that manages to be both sincere and indulgent, that yes, it does indeed count for something.

Owl orders for love potions begin pouring in at the shop in preparation for Valentine’s Day and Weasley is already having trouble keeping up with demand. Draco offers to help, mostly for himself - he’s been practicing with the impressively comprehensive set of potions supplies and new copper cauldrons since he got them from his parents for Christmas and has found that it soothes him, forces him to focus on controlling his hands, and he’s eager to try a calming activity at a job which otherwise causes him nothing but torment - but Weasley declines rather rudely, insisting that Draco will intentionally muck it up and ruin this line of the business. Draco doesn’t mention that such a thought had never even crossed his mind, nor that his instinct toward perfectionism is likely to win out over his primal drive for revenge, despite what Weasley thinks of him. 

The truth is Draco doesn’t care for love potions anyway, has been instilled by his mother and father with an exceptional disgust for what are essentially predator drugs, and is thoroughly creeped out by the number of orders Weasley’s gotten only two weeks into January. Still, he goes home to Spinner’s End and begins brewing a bit of Amortentia, just to prove to his 6th year self that he can do it, and forty-eight hours later, he’s staring down at a pearly sheen, feeling proud and satisfied, leaning in to catch the scents of old books, the particular smoke that lingers after something like a sudden explosion, and the street after a rainstorm. The smokiness is a complete mystery to him, but the other smells check out well enough. 

For his father’s birthday, Draco and his mother Apparate with him to New Orleans for lunch at a restaurant they’ve not been to in seven years, and Draco doesn’t tell him that he’s learning how to get by without magic, or that he’s made friends with his Muggle neighbor, or that his anxiety is still enough of a concern that Meriweather recently prescribed him one small vial of Draught of Peace a day to curb the worst of it. Their hands all still shake. 

Weasley closes the shop in a hurry on Valentine’s Day. Draco assumes that it’s something of a reward for surviving the horrible onslaught of demands for love potions, but then as he’s leaving he sees a tall black girl with long braided hair waiting awkwardly outside. She’s wearing a dress and seems nervous, and he knows that he knows her, just can’t place it until she catches sight of him and gives him a scathing look, which Draco thinks is undeserved, but it at least helps his mind put together that this is that Gryffindor Chaser girl. Something-with-an-A Johnson. Abigail? Alexandra? It doesn’t matter. He returns her mean look with his own and loops his scarf around his neck once more before setting off. As he’s walking away, he hears Weasley locking up the shop behind him, hears him say, “Angelina, hi,” in an odd sort of voice. Draco glances behind him, curious, and sees that Weasley’s changed into nicer clothes - for a certain value of nice, obviously - and is handing Johnson a small bouquet of pink roses, holding his arm out for her to take. Oh, Draco thinks. He’s puzzled, honestly, because he’s been under the strong impression this whole time that this particular Weasley is very, very gay, but it also makes him feel...

“Lonely,” Draco says to Meriweather the next day. 

He still takes these appointments at the Manor. His mother and father have decided that there are too many bad memories in the existing decor, too many nightmares and screams hiding in the furniture and behind the bookshelves, and have begun rearranging everything, reupholstering and repainting and refinishing it all. It’s long overdue, in Draco’s opinion, and he’s helped them so far in two of the smaller rooms, as much as he can, but it makes them anxious to see him pushing heavy items around using just his physical strength, to hear him suggest rubbing down the tabletop with sandpaper before applying a new coat of paint, so he’s mainly offering moral support at this point. He can hear them now, as he sits across from Meriweather; they’re a few rooms down the corridor, shifting around heavy chests and tables and chaises, trying to decide where to position them. Something about it makes Draco feel uneasy.

“Why?” Meriweather asks. Draco blinks, takes a moment to focus. Right. Weasley went on a date. And it made him feel lonely. He rolls his eyes, mostly at himself, and sighs.

“Because,” he says, “it’s just another bit of proof that everyone else is moving on. And I’m not.” He motions down the hall toward his parents’ current project and amends, “ _We’re_ not.”

“You’re not?” Meriweather says. “You’ve got a job, you’ve got a house, you’ve got a new friend. Your parents are redoing the whole Manor to move on.” Draco shakes his head, looks down at his hands, trembling, as ever. 

“I still don’t have my magic back,” he says, “and a fucking Weasley is going on a date. With a girl, even though I thought--doesn’t matter. I mean. The sod is missing a damn ear, his twin brother died, and he’s still moving forward with his life.”

“I’m sure it’s more complicated than that,” Meriweather says kindly. “Recovery isn’t a straight trajectory, you know. It’s a lot of forwards and backwards and loop-de-loops. I promise you: you’re not the only one.”

Draco feels deep in his heart that she’s lying, but it’s nice of her to say, at least.

\---

Calliope convinces Draco to start going for runs with her around Cokeworth when he gets home from work, now that March is bringing about a bit more warmth. He’s skeptical at first, a sneering inner voice telling him that _running for sport_ is something only _Muggles_ do because they can’t fly on brooms, that he’s _better_ than that because he’s a wizard. He ignores it, though, long enough to go on that first run, to feel the wind on his face, to hear the blood pumping noisily around his ears for a reason that isn’t panic, to see the whole quiet little town, even the shadowy corners and edges, to be able to envision its past, or its potential, or his own. 

Perspective. That’s what Calliope and Meriweather - when Draco mentions the new addition to his routine to her - say running like this offers. Only two weeks in and Draco has to agree with them. It’s not like it grants him some sort of mystical serenity or like, suddenly makes him understand how to solve all his problems, or gives him back his magic. It’s just that--it’s so easy to get lost in it. The rhythm of his trainers hitting the street, the sound of his own labored breathing, the path that each drop of sweat winds over his skin. It forces him to focus on each present passing moment, yes, and gets him out of his own head, so that he feels like he’s running from his own thoughts, sometimes. It doesn’t allow him the brain power to dwell on the past, or worry about the future, and when he’s showering afterward, soaping up the back of his neck, brushing his wet hair back off his forehead, he swears he can feel just a bit of his anxiety rinsing off too. 

So he’s glad that he’s got a new habit, that he can run his daily anger out of him through his pores, because after work, he desperately needs it. Following Valentine’s Day, Weasley started to become more and more insufferable with every hour, surprising Draco multiple times a day with his ability to accomplish what Draco was absolutely certain was impossible. Draco just assumed, for awhile, that Weasley’s date with that Chaser girl didn’t go well, which wasn’t exactly shocking. Gryffindors are poorly socialized, after all, Draco’s always known that, and Weasley even more so, naturally, him being a Weasley and all. But he’s been surpassing irritable lately, has begun to resemble that morose creature that Draco saw months ago, sitting in the shadows of this very shop. A depressed Weasley is why Draco’s here at all, why he inexplicably scribbled his name on the list stuck to the door, but this...this feels different. This feels worse. Bad enough for Draco to bring it up in a session with Meriweather, who raises her eyebrows and asks, “Are you _worried_ about George Weasley?” 

The accusation makes Draco splutter, because of _course_ he’s not, it’s not like _that_ ; it just seems worth a small amount of concern, one’s employer behaving so erratically, disappearing for hours on end to nap in the stockroom and Merlin knows whatever else, looking every day like it’s been weeks since he last slept despite those naps, staring blankly at a wall of his own inventions for minutes at a time, not uttering a single word for entire days, even to yell at his sole employee, who he hates. In fact, the only thing that seems consistently characteristic at all for Weasley these days is that he’s been working on a new product that requires a potion and he is fairly lousy at it. Draco offers help, again, more for his own practice than to actually _help_ , just as before, but Weasley swears at him, raises his voice, and Draco rolls his eyes and goes back to frowning at the customers. 

“What are you even trying to make?” Draco asks one morning, ducking away from an especially talkative patron. 

“Alihotsy Draught,” Weasley says absentmindedly, bent low over a cauldron, prodding at its contents with the tip of his wand.

“To induce hysteria,” Draco says, lip curling. “Why?”

“Why do you think, dimwit?” Weasley says, still focused on the potion. 

“You shouldn’t be agitating it,” Draco says, because he can’t help it. “It has to simmer for twenty-five minutes exactly, and then be allowed to return to room temperature before--”

“ _No_ ,” Weasley says, finally looking up at him. He jabs a finger at an open book next to the cauldron. “The instructions say to keep it in motion as it brews.” Draco snatches the book toward him on the table and reads. Weasley is literate, at least - the book does say that. 

“Well, the instructions are wrong,” Draco says. “The ground Alihotsy leaves have kinetic properties when mixed with honeywater, so it stays in motion on its own.” He glances at the book’s cover. “Adalbert Whitby had no business writing a potions book, if he didn’t even know that.” 

“Give that back,” Weasley demands. Draco looks up, waits until Weasley’s eyes meet his, and then slides the book in the opposite direction so that it falls off the table. Weasley swears at him and Draco gives him a satisfied smile.

“If I wasn’t making this potion, I’d hex you,” Weasley mutters, turning his gaze back to the cauldron, where the sorry excuse of an Alihotsy Draught is now emitting sparks, which only means that the key ingredient has officially lost its effectiveness. The forest green liquid wouldn’t so much as cause a sudden laugh now, much less the desired hysteria. _It’s a pity, really_ , Draco thinks. Alihotsy Draught looks quite beautiful when brewed correctly. 

A few days later Weasley disappears again in the middle of the day, after spending the whole morning being a jittery nuisance, running his fingers through his hideous ginger hair and poring over a months-old edition of the _Daily Prophet_ on the counter and snapping at Draco to keep his voice down even while Draco was trying to make a sale. The shop is empty now, save for Draco - Weasley isn’t even napping in the stockroom. Draco usually takes advantage of the early afternoon lull to take a few minutes to himself, hide out from Weasley in a corner with his eyes shut, taking deep breaths and clasping his shaking hands together, trying to ward off a headache and stretching out his shoulders. But now there’s no Weasley around to hide from, and there’s an empty cauldron in the back room, and Draco’s itching to make that potion the proper way.

Draco leaves it alone as it simmers, like one is _supposed_ to do, and stands at the table, leafing through the potions book that lied to Weasley. As it turns out, _most_ of the instructions are wrong in one way or another, which is just shameful. Draco ends up taking a quill to the pages, scribbling out “chop” and writing “shave” or “grind,” adding an ingredient here or there, crossing out entire lines of directions, in one or two cases, or swapping their sequence order. Some of these specifics he learned from Snape over the years, but most of it is just obvious, or should be, to anyone who knows enough about the individual ingredients. After twenty-five minutes, he takes the cauldron off the flame, lets it sit for another half hour, and then - his favorite part of this particular potion - adds the fairy wings. Glittery little things and thinner than rice parchment, they melt instantly when they touch the surface, room temperature still too warm for them to remain intact, and the sunflower yellow potion ripples as it darkens into deepest purple, glowing for a moment before settling into an impressive shimmer. Draco smiles down at it. 

“Ten points to Slytherin,” he says, in as good a Snape impression he can muster while whispering.

“What the fuck, Malfoy?” Weasley says from the doorway. Draco jumps. 

“Christ, Weasley,” he says, steadying himself with both hands on the table. “And where have _you_ been?”

“Minding my own damn business,” Weasley says. He walks across the room and shoves Draco out of the way. “Which is what I told _you_ to do,” he says, peering into the cauldron. He narrows his eyes and grabs the book, begins turning to the page on Alihotsy Draught. “God, _and_ you ruined all this!”

“I _fixed_ it, you tacky ogre,” Draco says, rolling his eyes, turning to leave the room. Let Weasley pour it all out if he wants. Draco made it correctly and that’s all he cares about. He’s nearly out the door when he hears Weasley’s voice again.

“You did it right.” Draco turns around to see Weasley looking from the book to the potion and back again. “The color, the shine,” he says, almost to himself. He looks up at Draco, eyes wide, and, Draco notices suddenly, bloodshot. “How’d you do that? You don’t even have magic.” Draco clenches his jaw for a few seconds, relaxes it, and takes a step closer to the cauldron. 

“Potions don’t require any wandwork,” he says. “It’s all intuition.” Weasley gives him a long look, and Draco can see the hollow exhaustion in the bags under his eyes, the despair tugging down at the corners of his mouth. It’s from this distance, with a table and a cauldron and several feet between them, that Draco realizes that Weasley’s eyes are blue, dark, like the denim of Draco’s jeans. The observation makes Draco feel uncomfortable, for some reason, and he’s immensely relieved when Weasley looks down again. He stands there in silence for another thirty seconds, waiting for Weasley to speak again, but the only sound that comes is the shrill jingle alerting the shop to another customer. 

“Well, if that’s all,” Draco says loudly, expectantly, rolling his eyes, and heaves the rudest sigh he can manage when Weasley merely waves his hand dismissively, still staring at the potion. 

\---

Draco is on his way out the door after closing the shop on the first day of April when Weasley grabs his arm and says, “I need your help with something,” and Apparates them to Hogsmeade without any further warning. Gasping for air from the shock of it, he doesn’t realize that Weasley’s still got him by the arm until he’s already been all but dragged past the Three Broomsticks. 

“Unhand me!” Draco says, as loudly as he can while still catching his breath. He tries to pull himself away, but Weasley’s grip is too strong. He tries to just collapse, force Weasley to contend with his dead weight, but Weasley just huffs and grasps him by the shoulders, hauls him up and pulls him along until Draco finally gets frustrated enough to allow his feet to do their job. 

“I demand to know why I’m being kidnapped,” Draco says. He looks ahead and realizes with a horrible jolt where their path leads. “Why in Merlin’s name are you trying to smuggle me back into Hogwarts?”

“Oh, shut up,” Weasley grunts. “Don’t be so goddamn dramatic.” Draco, fully aware that he has inherited the melodramatic blood of his ancestors from both sides of his family, stomps on Weasley’s foot.

“Help! Help!” he screams, turning his head toward the shops behind him. “Help me! I’m being kidnapped by a madman!”

“Shut _up_ ,” Weasley says again. He points his wand at Draco, whose voice cuts out midword. Draco clasps at his throat and turns a look of wild fury on Weasley. “Finally,” Weasley says. “Nobody would help you anyway, you know.” Draco’s jaw tightens at the truth of it. He gives up, then, and lets himself be led to Hogwarts.

The gates open without hesitation for them, and Draco eyes the entrance hall ahead of them with renewed trepidation, his mind forming scenarios of some elaborate form of vigilante justice on a grand public scale. Perhaps he will be thrown into the Great Hall with that ugly hippogriff that should’ve gotten an axe through its neck ages ago and has undoubtedly been readying itself for revenge on Draco for his role in its would-be slaying ever since, or with one of those repulsive Blast-Ended Skrewts that should have landed that sorry excuse for a teacher in Azkaban again for the cruel and illegal hybrid breeding of two dangerous magical species - or maybe with the great oaf Hagrid himself, _fuck_. Maybe Weasley’s told everyone that he doesn’t have magic anymore and he’s going to be forced to attempt to duel with a dumb half-breed with only a third year education and lose, where everyone can see. They’ll all be standing round the center, obviously, shielded by their own protective charms. Potter will be there, probably, and the whole awful Weasley clan, and Granger and Longbottom - _God_ , they’ll be insufferable about it, positively gleeful to witness Draco Malfoy’s comeuppance. He’s feeling lightheaded at just the thought. 

But Weasley takes a sharp left turn, away from the entrance hall, and Draco has a few moments of inconceivable relief before realizing where they’re actually going. 

“ _No_ , no, no!” he shouts, too scared to even wonder when Weasley released him from the Silencing Charm. He digs his heels into the earth but he’s not a match for Weasley’s strength. He tries to go limp again but the fear that’s seized his muscles won’t let him. “Someone will hear me yelling,” he says frantically, “someone will see us.”

“They won’t,” Weasley says. “Not with a Quidditch match on. Gryffindor against Ravenclaw, Ginny says.”

“Fantastic,” Draco says, a bit hysterical. “Great. Bang up job to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Why are we going into the Forbidden Forest, then? Wouldn’t you rather watch your sister fly?”

“This is rather more important than a Quidditch match,” Weasley mutters, “and you’ll see.” Draco’s mind is swimming with what knowledge he has of the creatures inside the forest, all the things they could encounter, all the horrible ways in which he could die in there.

“Did those horrid gigantic spiders ever return to the forest?” he asks. “After the battle? Do you know?”

“You really are a twitchy little coward, Malfoy,” Weasley sneers, pulling Draco past the half-giant’s dumpy hovel. 

“It’s not _cowardly_ to want to keep a generous distance between myself and an _enormous eight-legged beast that eats humans_ ,” Draco snaps, struggling in vain as they reach the edge of the forest and then, to the rocketing beat of Draco’s frenzied heart, step into its darkness.

“You could’ve just fired me,” he whispers, suddenly still and cooperative, not wanting to make any sound that could result in the discovery of their trespassing and ultimately their execution. “I would’ve been happy to be done with the place. There’s no need to drag me in here and--”

“This has _nothing_ to do with _you_ ,” Weasley says through gritted teeth. The tone of his voice startles Draco toward silence, makes him whip his head around to get a look at Weasley’s face. Pure anguish is carved there, has made a home of every line and shadow, anchored its crazed roots into his eyes. The sight is haunting, alarms Draco into quiet compliance as Weasley leads him deeper and deeper into the woods, wordlessly, walking with the kind of purpose and certainty that would make Draco nervous even if they weren’t in the thick of a creepy forest full of monsters. 

After several tense minutes, they reach a large circular patch of land, eerily clear of trees, and Weasley stops abruptly at the edge of it and drops into a crouch. Draco, though, as if drawn by something unseen, takes another few steps into the light of the setting sun, and feels an unseasonable chill shiver through him as he looks around him. Opposite him are two trees with wide broken trunks angled awkwardly toward each other, a sharp divot dug into them like they’ve recently had an unbreakable rope bound about them. There are traces of magic here, stronger than anywhere else he’s walked through on the way, and Draco swears it’s Dark, undeniably so, until the wind shifts. The contrast is enough to knock him unsteady on his feet.

He’s wondering what happened here, surely not long ago, when it hits him that this is where Potter died and where Potter didn’t die, where his mad aunt bowed low in subservience to the Dark Lord and where his terrified mother bent over Potter and asked him if her son was alive. It’s easy to picture it, now that he’s here, all the things he heard during the trials. Those trees must have been where Hagrid was tied up, and Draco can just barely make out an imprint of a body on the ground in the center, like someone was taken by surprise and thrown backward. He stands silently, almost reverently, a tremor ricocheting through him, wondering where exactly his parents stood, wandless, utterly defenseless, terrified and beaten down. Of all places in this godforsaken forest, why would Weasley bring him _here_?

“Yeah, this is the place,” a small voice says from behind him. Draco turns to see Weasley on his knees in the dirt, face inches from the ground, hands scanning over and through the grass. “It has to be here. It has to be here.”

“What has to be here?” Draco asks quietly. “Why are we here?”

“Shut up,” Weasley snaps. “Get over here, on the ground. Help me look for it.”

“Look for _what_?” Draco demands. Weasley’s head jerks up and Draco steps back out of instinct at the deranged look on Weasley’s face.

“The Resurrection Stone,” Weasleys says. “Harry said he dropped it somewhere around a clearing like this. This has to be the one, I mean, can’t you _feel_ the evil?”

“It, ah,” Draco says, totally out of his element, “it certainly is a clearing.” It doesn’t matter. Weasley’s already gone back to examining the grass and soil.

“You have to help me find it,” Weasley says again. 

“You want me to help you find the Resurrection Stone,” Draco says. He feels a bit mad himself just from repeating it out loud. Weasley doesn’t respond, just crawls some to his left with his nose still at the ground. 

“It’s got to be here,” he says, evidently to himself. “Harry said he came from that direction, and walked straight, and that would put him here--” He stops, digs his hands into the dirt for a moment, and says, “But it’s not here,” before glancing wildly toward his right and crawling in that direction, rummaging through the grass along the way. “It’s here, it’s here, I know it’s here.” 

“Why do you even want--” Draco starts. 

“To bring back Fred, you idiot!” Weasley screams. Draco flinches, spinning around in a fearful little circle and holding his breath, hoping nothing that heard the noise will come running.

“Keep your voice down,” he hisses at Weasley.

“We can get out of the forest quicker if you _help me_ find what I’m looking for,” Weasley says. His digging is becoming more frantic now, more disturbed, more disturbing. Draco swallows around a lump in his throat.

“I’m not going to do that,” he says. 

“Yes, you are. I’ll fire you if you don’t.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll give you a raise then if you do,” Weasley says. 

“I don’t care,” says Draco. “I refuse to be a part of this lunacy.”

“It’s not _lunacy_!” Weasley yells, looking up so that Draco can see the wild desperation in his eyes. “I have to bring him back! It’s our birthday today! I _have_ to bring him back! _I need him!_ ” Draco watches him dive back to the ground, hands roaming over it, clawing at it, examining every blade of grass, every pebble, every clump of dirt, and crawling the whole way. Draco feels...it’s something like remorse, but he didn’t commit the act in question here. The regret, though. The guilt. He feels that.

“Weasley,” he says softly. 

“Help. Me. Find. It,” Weasley growls through strained breathing. His shoulders are heaving as he works. Draco takes a few steps forward, sways one back, then a few forward once more, until he’s only an arm’s length away from Weasley. He looks back to where he was just standing. He doesn’t know why he closed the distance.

“Weasley,” he says again, “you can’t do that. You know what happens in the story. You know what becomes of the second brother.” Weasley’s moving faster now, has crawled away from Draco, making his way all around the edge of the clearing.

“You don’t know anything,” Weasley’s muttering accusingly, fingernails caked with soil now. “You haven’t lost anyone! You haven’t even lost your freedom!” 

Draco says nothing, not even a defensive, “I’ve lost my magic,” which he feels he’s entitled to, quite frankly. But his silence seems to only further encourage Weasley, who’s practically chanting now, “I have to find it, I have to find it, I have to find it, I have to find it.” 

“Weasley,” Draco tries once more.

“It’s not _here_!” Weasley bellows, miserable and tormented, clumps of dirt closed in his fists as he uproots the grass and wildflowers. He’s crying, Draco realizes, but before Draco can deal with that, Weasley lets out a scream of singular agony, so loud and long that nearby creatures can be heard fleeing and flying away, and then Weasley collapses to the earth, great surging sobs coming from deep in his chest, his entire body tightening like he’s trying to bury himself, fingers flexing in the fresh black soil.

It took Draco weeks for his fingertips to heal from scrabbling at concrete for who knows how long. 

“Everyone else is moving on,” Weasley says, screams it, more or less, his voice muffled against the grass, and haggard anyway. It hurts Draco’s throat just to hear it. “Everyone else is moving on and I’m stuck. Mum and Dad are throwing a goddamn birthday party - they want to celebrate his _life_ \- but I--I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t--I can’t move on without him. I can’t, and I’m alone, I’m the only one….” He trails off into more sobs, curling in on himself. Draco knows he shouldn’t be staring still, knows firsthand how private a breakdown like this is, would have just died if anyone witnessed his a few months ago. But he can’t look away, can’t take his eyes off this broken mirror in front of him. Every atom in the air of the whole forest feels acutely focused on Draco and Weasley, the big wide universe on tenterhooks with them.

It’s countless long, heavy minutes before Draco says quietly, “You’re not alone.” As soon as he says it, it occurs to him that Weasley may have meant that he was alone, as in, the only twin left, which would make this a horrifying misinterpretation, but Draco chooses to carry on anyway, hoping he’s right. “You’re not the only one who’s stuck while everyone else is moving on. I feel it, too, I’m stuck. My whole family is. Although,” he grimaces, sure he’s messing this up, “you probably don’t count us. Nobody does.” He shakes his head, rolls his eyes at himself, and mutters, “That’s fine.”

But Weasley seems to be calming, slowly, though Draco can’t understand why. The blubbering has stopped, at least, but his breathing is still labored, and the sound of Weasley’s strained inhales is making Draco’s skin feel too tight. He looks around at the surroundings woods. The sun is no longer visible over the clearing and darkness is settling through the forest. Draco wants to leave, but he knows he has no real hope of getting out of here without Weasley. It’s not nearly so dire as the situation his mother faced in this very clearing, but he thinks he might know a little of what she felt. And she had knelt on the ground, put her hand over the heart of someone who had caused her and her family nothing but aggravation and grief for years, and she’s the strongest person Draco has ever known. He can do the same.

He steps closer to Weasley and sits criss-cross on the ground next to him, says, “It helps if you--Come here.” He places his hand on Weasley’s shoulder, pulls him up some to a sitting position. Weasley’s face is all blotchy, his eyes swollen and red, tear tracks evident in the thin layer of soil on his face. It hurts to look at him. Draco takes Weasley’s wrist and presses his dirty hand on Draco’s own chest, grateful that he chose a black button-up today, and then rests his hand over Weasley’s heart. “Just follow my breathing, okay?” he says, and begins to take slow, deep breaths, deliberate, like Pansy taught him what feels like ages ago. He can feel a thumping heart under his palm, tries to will it to some degree of serenity, hoping the tremors in his hand won’t be too much of a distraction, and finally after several minutes of just breathing, of looking down at his hand on an unfamiliar and rather hideous shirt, Weasley’s breaths become steadier and steadier, until Weasley drops his hand from Draco’s chest. Draco removes his hand as well, brushes vaguely at the dirty handprint left on his shirt. 

“We thought it would be me, you know,” Weasley says quietly. Draco looks up at him. “Fred and me, we thought...I mean, I’d already got my ear Cursed off. We thought it seemed like I’d cheated death and it would come after me. If it had to be one of us, we both really believed it would be me. I didn’t even….” He cuts off, swallows, rubs his arm over his eyes. “We didn’t want to be those people who, someone dies and they say, ‘He would’ve wanted this’ but there’s no way to really know--we didn’t want that. We talked about it, over and over, what we’d want the other to do if one of us--” He stops again, closes his eyes, takes a deep, shuddering breath.

Draco, who can’t imagine having any such conversation with a loved one even once, much less repeatedly, tries to contain his horror when he asks, “What did he want you to do?” Weasley sniffs and opens his eyes, blinks down at the ground.

“Keep the shop running,” he says. “Make some sort of hilarious scene at Ron and Hermione’s inevitable wedding. Give Harry a proper hazing if he got back together with Ginny. Learn all the rude French words from Fleur. Take care of Angelina.” His shoulders slump. “They weren’t even dating at the time. He just thought--he always sort of thought they were destined for something. He wanted me to, like….”

“Take his place?” Draco says incredulously. Weasley shakes his head. That he doesn’t also throw Draco a mean look is surely a testimony to his mental state. 

“No,” he says, “or--maybe. I don’t know. He just...he wanted me to take care of her, make sure she was okay, try to make her happy.”

“Is that why you went on a date with her?” Draco blurts out after a few seconds of silence. Weasley huffs out what may be a bit of a laugh.

“I suppose so,” he says, shaking his head again, more to himself this time. “I thought she could help me...move on. I thought maybe we would be able to push each other forward. But she’s already gone on ahead without me.” He sighs and lifts his head up and looks at Draco, who can see fresh tears falling from Weasley’s eyes, washing away new tracks of dirt off his cheeks, down over his jaw. 

“I know the feeling,” Draco says softly. “Proper abandonment, isn’t it? Like everyone’s leaving you behind, and they’re already so far ahead you’ve got no hope of catching up.” 

“You said you’re stuck, too,” Weasley says. “You and your family. Tell me.” Draco chews on his bottom lip, glances around at the dark woods. 

“Get me out of this forest,” he says, thinking strategically, “ _safely_ \- and I will.” Weasley looks around, startled, like he’d forgotten where they were, but then lets out a weak chuckle and rises up on his knees. Draco stands, hopeful, stretches out his hand in an effort to get going even two seconds sooner. 

“Fine,” Weasley says as Draco helps him to his feet. They walk back through the dark forest in silence, besides the occasional twig snapping under their feet. Once or twice, Draco jumps at a sudden sound nearby, or a foreboding figure in the distance, but they make it to the other side alive, and he practically sprints to the Hogwarts gates, Weasley’s laugh shocking the air behind him. 

On the walk back to Hogsmeade, Weasley asks again, and Draco hesitates for only a moment before speaking. He doesn’t tell Weasley everything, but he does tell him more than he’s told anyone else who isn’t Meriweather. He tells him more than he means to, that he still has nightmares, that he had to move out of his family home because of it, that his parents are still reworking every room of that home in an effort to expel its demons, that he thinks it’s a futile effort, that his hands won’t stop shaking. That all of their hands won’t stop shaking. 

“I noticed,” Weasley says, not entirely unkindly. “I wondered.” He looks at Draco’s face until Draco meets his eyes, looks away without another word when Draco shrugs. 

They wander through Hogsmeade for awhile, the shops that are still open casting warm light onto the street from their windows. They pop in to a few of them - Honeydukes, Dogweed and Deathcap, Tomes and Scrolls - and when Weasley is in Zonko’s, Draco slips into Ceridwen’s Cauldrons, buys a small cauldron that promises to help the user along until the potion is completed, and hides the box into his bag full of Honeydukes sweets. Weasley eventually Apparates them back to Diagon Alley, and Weasley suggests they get dinner at the Leaky Cauldron, and Draco says, “Sure,” because he’s starving, and doesn’t think Weasley should be left alone after such a draining cathartic episode, and he’s already missed his Portkey anyway. They sit for a couple of hours, eating game pie and pea soup, quietly looking through their purchases - Draco paging through his new books, Weasley scrutinizing each product in his bag from Zonko’s and taking notes, both absentmindedly eating taffy and sugared butterfly wings - until Tom grumpily kicks them out at midnight. It doesn’t even occur to Draco how awkward this situation is until they’re outside with their hands in their pockets, pulling strange faces, like a pair of dumb third years who’ve found themselves at Madam Puddifoot’s and now don’t know what to do with themselves. Draco could truly kick himself for letting this happen. 

“I’ve got to catch the Knight Bus,” he says instead, trying to regain some control over his body, which seems to want to do some bizarre and inexplicable full-body wave. 

“Right,” Weasley says, strangely clipped, like this whole night is just hitting him too and he’s embarrassed by the entire series of events. “Watch it on that thing. They’ll take a turn and someone’s hot chocolate will end up all over your shirt.”

“Yes, well,” Draco says, rolling his eyes and gesturing to his chest, “I’ve already got dirt on it, you see.” Weasley gives the briefest of glances to Draco’s shirt.

“Right,” he says again, mouth quirking up just a bit. Draco wants this to end, desperately. He opens his Honeydukes bag and takes out the cauldron box, shoves it at Weasley, who looks down at it in surprise that fades quickly into annoyance.

“I thought I’d made it quite clear I wasn’t interested in celebrating my birthday,” he says, glowering at Draco. Draco lifts an eyebrow.

“It’s not a birthday gift,” he says irritably, “because it’s the _second_ of April.” Weasley’s jaw remains tense for another few moments but he soon relaxes into the tiniest begrudging smile.

“Fine,” Weasley says, giving the box a once-over. “Dunno why you bought me this, though, seeing as you’re going to be doing the potions from now on.” Draco blinks, surprise knocking him backward a step. 

“I--”

“Good night,” Weasley says, turning and walking back toward his shop.

\---

So Draco handles the potions now at work. 

It’s tricky sometimes. Like, he has to work with ratios that Weasley’s perfected for things like Nosebleed Nougats and Fainting Fancies, and his shaking hands make the particulars so challenging. But Weasley gives him free reign to make potions for the random boxes product line - buy a box without knowing what’s inside, get a good or bad surprise - so he gets to make all kinds of the fun potions he used to brew during summer holidays, frivolous and nostalgic in their childlikeness. Even the ones with more bite to them can go into the Demon Boxes, although Weasley insists on double checking those, giving him a suspicious look like he thinks Draco’s actually trying to poison strangers. 

“You poisoned my little brother once,” Weasley says with a significant glare.

“I wasn’t _trying_ to poison _him_ ,” Draco mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“That’s _worse_ , you dolt,” Weasley says with a roll of his eyes, but he always signs off on the potions anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

Hogwarts hosts a memorial on the evening of the anniversary of the battle. Draco spends the whole day in his own head, unable to focus, because it’s been a year. A whole year since everything changed, since everything ended. A year without his magic.

He’s been waffling for two weeks on whether or not to go to the memorial, and arranging half a dozen Portkeys for different times to Hogwarts because he knows he’ll still be undecided on the day and he wants to cover all possibilities. It turns out to be a wise move, because he only finally leaves with the fourth one, an empty crisps bag on the sidewalk in front of the launderette. Hogwarts alumni and the older current students are swarming the entrance hall when he walks in, a loud hum of countless conversations assaulting his senses. The memorial itself is taking place in the Great Hall, and at first Draco assumes the doors are closed until the official start time in half an hour, but then he sees the familiar candles floating in the air in the distance, sees a sliver of the sunset in place of a normal ceiling, and realizes that people just aren’t going in, like they’re afraid stepping over that threshold will make it too real. Draco rolls his eyes at the naiveté of it, filling with a terrible resentment towards every person in here, and begins pushing his way through the crowd as subtly as he can, desperate to not draw any attention to himself. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more hyper aware of his surroundings and his own body than right now, tucking his elbows in so that he doesn’t bump into anyone, glancing up at the ceiling every few steps on high alert for Peeves. 

When he finally enters the Great Hall, unscathed and undiscovered, he looks around, at the formation of the tables in a big square in the center of the room, at the teachers huddled together at the front, at the maybe fifteen people scattered throughout - all Slytherins, all looking uncomfortable and out of place. He feels nauseated, his insides haunted with the precise memory of sitting at one of these tables with his parents, terrified of what would come next, hoping no one would notice them and give them what they deserved, feeling the magic drain from his fingers. 

His tired eyes land on a tapestry on the wall to his left: a list of names of those who died here exactly one year ago, each letter taunting him with gentle motion and a glittering light, like a wave out at sea, like a star in the night sky. He walks toward it without meaning to and stares at it openly. At first he doesn’t really see it except through a haze so thick he swears it’s magic, identifying him as an enemy somehow, but it clears when he blinks, allows him to read the names. The names in the first column jump from _Emma Carrington_ to _Colin Creevey_ and Draco squints at the space between them, where _Vincent Crabbe_ \--well, shouldn’t be, he figures, sadly, and isn’t, but. There should be something for him, Draco thinks. Some proof that he existed, that he too was a casualty. He shakes his head, clears those thoughts away, and his eyes catch and lock onto the twinkling _Fred Weasley_ in the bottom corner of the tapestry. 

“We should probably take our seats,” a familiar steady voice comes from beside him. Draco turns sharply to see Blaise, tall and dark and handsome as ever, a tentative smile creeping in at the corners of his mouth. Draco blinks at him, rather surprised to see him here.

“I’m rather surprised to see you here,” Draco says coolly. Blaise’s left eyebrow twitches, which means he’s trying to decide how to respond. 

God, Draco’s missed this, missed _Blaise_ , he’s only just now realizing how much. Blaise is a book written in a language only two people on the planet can read, and Draco, having cut his teeth on the binding alongside Pansy when they were barely old enough to crawl, is fluent. He worried, the one or two times when he allowed himself to think about the total lack of contact between him and Blaise ever since the trial, or him and Pansy, that he would fall out of practice by the time Blaise started coming around again. But here he is, an encyclopedia of fleeting microexpressions secreted away in a corner of a hedge maze, and Draco can still read every word. He’s finally found some footing.

“Yes, well,” Blaise says, looking away, “I thought an appearance would earn me some points at the Department.” His nostrils flare, just slightly. “And I thought you might be here.”

“Bit of a gamble,” Draco says. “I almost didn’t come.” Blaise shrugs. 

“I knew you would, though,” he says quietly. “Now, shall we find a seat?”

They sit where two of the tables make a little corner, and after a minute or two, the other Slytherins in attendance start taking seats around them. It’s comforting, in its own way, familiar, gives Draco something to focus on instead of the crowd finally beginning to file in from the entrance hall, flexing his hand in little waves at Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode, at the Greengrass sisters and Adrian Pucey. Theodore Nott is there too, glaring daggers at Draco when he looks at him at all, and Draco remembers, with some surprise, that he testified against Theodore’s father, just a little less than a year ago now. Those trials - Merlin, but Draco barely recalls them, existed in a fog for those weeks. He shakes his head, shifts uncomfortably, flattens his trembling palms over his thighs.

“Don’t look now but the great saviors are here,” comes a silvery voice. Draco looks up to see Pansy taking a seat next to him. She looks so much healthier now than the last time he saw her, face fuller, eyes lively. He wonders idly if she’s been through treatment again, if it finally took. “Nice to see you boys,” she says quietly, leaning forward and nodding across Draco at Blaise, who doesn’t manage to school his expression before Draco notes the widening of his eyes, the quivering in his right temple - Blaise was hoping to see her, but didn’t know if she’d be here. 

“Been awhile,” Blaise says smoothly. 

“Have you--” Draco whispers, glancing at each of them and then facing directly ahead, his eyes catching Weasley’s in a flash of a moment as Weasley sits down toward the front with his siblings and Potter and Granger, “have you two not been speaking to each other either, then?” On either side of Draco, Pansy and Blaise look at each other, at Draco, and back again. 

“You haven’t been speaking to Draco either?” they say in unison, quietly, Pansy’s voice high with concern, Blaise’s low and taut. At the front of the room, McGonagall stands and raises her hands, commanding everyone’s attention, and Blaise and Pansy don’t get to continue this discussion, but Draco is feeling, perhaps oddly, warmed by their revelation. He assumed, this whole year, that Blaise and Pansy were getting by with each other’s company, occasionally talking about Draco as one does an old friend who suffered an untimely death, but otherwise carrying on with life like everyone else. Realizing that they, like him, have been coping alone, focusing on themselves until they felt ready to see one another, is an unbelievable comfort.

The point of this event, Draco is appalled to discover, is apparently just to talk. It’s just people talking. About the events of the battle, about people they lost, about how their lives have changed since then. Gryffindors dominate the conversation, as ever, starting with Potter’s typical stilted expressions of poorly developed feelings. Granger speaks next, rehearsed, perfect as always, and Draco suddenly remembers her speaking on his behalf at his trial, the tense set of her shoulders matching the edge in her voice as she revealed his reluctance and his fear and foolishly called it bravery. Weasley - the one in his year, this time, Ron - is next, followed by his sister, and Draco happily tunes them out, lets his mind and gaze wander, although both keep finding their way back to Weasley - his boss - who’s staring up at the ceiling, into the sky. The girl asks him if he wants to say anything, and Draco holds his breath until Weasley shakes his head, hardly sparing his sister a glance but shifting his eyes to the floor instead.

Others begin speaking then - Longbottom, Finnigan, Dean Thomas after an elbowed encouragement from Finnigan, Cho Chang, Finch-Fletchley, Dennis Creevey, Macmillan, more than a dozen Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors whose names Draco never bothered to learn - and Draco’s attention fades in and out. His heart lurches when Luna Lovegood speaks, her musical voice catching him off guard and reminding him of the months she spent locked away in the cellar of his family home, even though she never mentions that at all; he’s grateful when she stops talking, feels his lungs relax. And throughout all this, Weasley says nothing, just stares at the ground, joining all the Slytherins in their silence. 

Draco is struck by the way everyone here keeps mentioning _house unity_ , as if that’s something that was achieved through this war, through this battle. Looking around, he sees that Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Huffepuffs are all seated together, among each other, mixed and friendly. It feels every bit like a Quidditch match, three quarters of the school against the Slytherins, in spite of the fact that they’re all taking great care to not even acknowledge the Slytherins’ presence in any way.

“It was just really encouraging, the way we all came together,” Lavender Brown says, to emphatic nodding from Parvati Patil, who’s holding her hand. Draco sighs.

“There’s so much competitiveness at school, you know,” says Hannah Abbott, a few minutes later, reiterating a similar point made by Padma, “but I think we proved that none of that matters, when it comes down to it.” Draco ducks his head down and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah,” says some Ravenclaw bloke with shaggy dark hair in desperate need of a cut, after five more people harp on about this mythical house unity. “I mean, even here now, we’re not segregated by house. We’re all sitting together.” Draco scoffs, louder than he meant to, rolling his eyes again and snorting. He feels, with a sudden intensity, all eyes turn on him. To his right, Pansy goes rigid, fearful, and on his other side, Blaise straightens his back, stops breathing. Draco looks up, out at everyone else in the room, and meets McGonagall’s pointed gaze.

“Would you like to say something, Mr. Malfoy?” she asks shrilly. He sweeps his eyes along the other tables, then turns to glance at the people surrounding him, Slytherins all, looking back at him with wary expressions but defiant eyes. Pansy and Blaise are still flanking him with palpable tension, faces forward and stiff, making him pause for just a second before he opens his mouth, spitefulness getting the better of him, as it often does.

“Yes, I would,” he says. “I only think it’s curious, the way all of you are talking about house unity, when what you really mean is that three houses teamed up together and, as usual, aggressively refused to find any compassion or empathy within yourselves to extend to the Slytherin House.”

“‘ _As usual_ ’?” the Weaslette repeats incredulously, her eyes flashing anger. “What on earth are you talking about, Malfoy? _You_ lot have always been that way against _everyone else_.” Sounds of agreement rise up at the tables around her. 

“I can’t believe you would come here an--” Macmillan starts, but Slughorn clears his throat and Macmillan snaps his mouth shut rather comically.

“Perhaps,” Slughorn says delicately, giving a clearly furious McGonagall a gracious little nod, “it might be beneficial for some of the Slytherins to talk about their own experiences here with regard to, ah, ‘house unity.’” His tone is telling. Draco never warmed to Slughorn the way he did to Snape, couldn’t have been expected to even under different circumstances, but he knows, in this moment, that Slughorn knows what absolute bullshit this all is, knows that Slughorn is on their side. He feels Blaise and Pansy relax, just slightly, next to him, hears the unmistakable bark of Tracey’s laugh behind him and the familiar hiss of Daphne Greengrass’ rapidfire whispering on the other side of Pansy. Across the room, he catches Weasley’s eyes, reads only intrigue in them now, but remembers what malice looks like there. _Finally!_ he thinks. _Yes, let’s have it out._

“Alright,” Draco says, voice all honey as he addresses the room at large. “Imagine you earn a spot on the House Quidditch team, because you’ve been flying since you could walk and you’re very, very good at Quidditch, and you also happen to be rich, so in celebration and support, your father buys brand new brooms for the whole team, and now everyone except your own house thinks you’re undeserving and that your father simply bought your way in.” He throws a glare at Granger as he finishes, distinctly recalling her accusation in their second year.

“Or,” he continues, before Granger can do much more than narrow her eyes, “imagine everyone thinking the only reason you and your classmates have such high marks in Potions is because the professor favors you instead of considering even for a moment that you might actually just be adept at the subject.”

“Imagine everybody assuming you’re cheating and professors never trusting your word,” Daphne snaps bitterly, “when you know for a _fact_ people in other houses are doing each other’s homework and getting away with it.” Draco knows Daphne is referring to a group of Ravenclaws, but he notices a flush spread to Granger’s dark skin, and he rolls his eyes, because of _course_ Granger was doing Potter and Weasley’s homework.

“Imagine a genocidal maniac is ready to go to battle at your school,” Blaise says, clear and proud, making Draco jump, “and he says he’ll kill everyone if you don’t hand over one particular student, and you look around you and see your friends, and _children_ , and you think the answer is obvious. Surely everyone else will agree with you. It’s the logical conclusion. So you suggest just handing him over as requested, and in doing so you become a symbol of cowardice for your whole house, and everyone - _everyone_ \- turns against you and the Deputy Headmistress sends you away. But because you’re _not_ a coward, you stay in the Hog’s Head alone with dozens of children, who are stuck there because of the horrifically selfish actions of a notoriously cowardly _Hufflepuff_ , to take care of them.” Draco looks sidelong at Pansy, whose jaw must be aching with how tightly she’s holding it. He didn’t know she stayed that night. “But no one remembers that part, of course,” Blaise finishes, “because it’s cleaner for the narrative to cast you aside along with everyone else in your house.”

“Now imagine,” Pansy cuts in, voice careful and controlled, glancing briefly at Blaise, “that you’ve been sent away along with the rest of your house by the Deputy Headmistress, but you want to fight, so you and your professor go into Hogsmeade to recruit reinforcements, and you return with an army big enough to topple any offense instead of just a bunch of teenagers, and after a victory is declared, your contributions are entirely ignored.” She sticks out her chin and adds, “Because it’s cleaner for the narrative.” Blaise exchanges a grateful look with her as Draco watches, with great satisfaction, many Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs around the room becoming demonstrably uncomfortable. 

“Imagine you’re eleven years old,” Malcolm Braddock says, from Blaise’s left side, “and you’re so excited to come to Hogwarts, you can’t wait to be sorted, and when the Hat says you’re a Slytherin, only one table of students cheers for you, while everyone else - at every other table - boos and hisses at you.” Draco winces at that memory. It was Weasley and his twin brother who hissed, loud enough to hear from all the way across the hall, and Draco and Blaise and Pansy had to assure Malcolm that he didn’t do anything wrong, that Slytherins just had to stick together for each other, because no one else would do it for them. “You keep watching others behind you get sorted, and you notice that everyone else applauds for anyone sorted into one of the other three houses, while everyone sorted with you into Slytherin is instantly hated, and it’s only your first day.” Even some Gryffindors are looking guilty now. Weasley is biting his lip. 

Pucey speaks up then, followed by Millicent, Tracey, Astoria Greengrass, Vikram Thakur, Amy Frome, and Graham Pritchard. All similar stories, undeserving persecution from day one, banding together against the other three houses out of necessity. Draco lets everyone talk, looks around as they do, taking in the increasingly contrite expressions on the faces of the others in the hall. He feels as though he could positively bask in the gratification of it all, back to how he used to feel most of the time in this school, until sixth year anyway. Weasley meets his eyes again then and Draco can’t read them, but he can see from here that Weasley’s bottom lip is swollen from being bitten. A distant memory surfaces in his mind, so abruptly that he doesn’t have time to think, just blurts it out as soon as he hears a lull in the discussion.

With his eyes still locked on Weasley’s, he says, “Imagine you get shoved into a broken Vanishing Cabinet.” This isn’t Draco’s story to tell, but he knows it like it is, learned it at the victim’s own hospital wing bedside, and it’s not as if Montague is in any state, still, to tell it besides. Weasley raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t look away. “You can’t get out through the door, no matter how hard you push, and no one hears you yelling, so you decide to try to Apparate because you have no other options. The only problem is that you’re still learning how to Apparate and you don’t have your license, so you end up getting lodged inside a toilet. You nearly die from it. You’re barely conscious for days and disoriented for weeks, and months later you still have to be spoon fed. Meanwhile, there are students here who know what happened to you, but they don’t ever tell Madam Pomfrey, even though it might help her treat you, so when the school year ends and your brain is still addled, your parents have no choice but to get you a bed at St. Mungo’s.”

“We weren’t here,” Weasley says suddenly, voice croaky. Everyone jumps, turns to look at him, except for his brother, Potter, and Granger, who seem to be trying to melt into their seats. The story has left McGonagall looking scandalized. Weasley is still holding Draco’s gaze.

“Excuse me?” Draco says, raising an eyebrow.

“You mean me and Fred,” Weasley says evenly. “We shoved him into the cabinet. You’re saying we should’ve told Madam Pomfrey about him screwing up the Apparition out of it. But we had left Hogwarts by the time it was obvious his injuries were lasting. That’s not on us.” 

“I didn’t mean you, actually,” Draco says. He breaks eye contact with Weasley to slide his gaze smoothly to Weasley’s right. Granger grips her Weasley’s hand, looking like she might vomit, while he stares down at the ground, neck so stiff he might have been hexed. Next to them, Potter’s chewing at his fingernail, avoiding Draco’s eyes. Draco is wondering how to proceed, if it’s worth calling them out right here, when he doesn’t actually have definitive proof, when another voice sounds throughout the hall.

“Imagine you’re well in over your head,” Luna Lovegood says, looking right at Draco, “and you just want your family to get through the war alive.” Draco’s mouth goes dry. This isn’t what he wanted when he started this, which probably shouldn’t surprise him. Isn’t that usually how it works out for him these days? “On the train ride home for Christmas, a girl gets kidnapped, and when you get home, you learn that she’s being kept in your family’s cellar as a prisoner, and you’re ordered to bring her and the other prisoner food every day while you’re there. You bring them meals, you bring the girl information about her dad, you sit and talk with her every day even though you don’t have to. You feel scared and alone and you just want the war to be over, and talking to her makes you feel like it isn’t happening, even if you think most of what she has to say is nonsense.” 

Draco stares at her, frozen. She blinks pleasantly. “Did I get it right?” she asks him. He swallows. His eyes are stinging. He glances around frantically, catches Weasley’s eyes again before getting to his feet and walking out. He thinks Pansy may call after him once, but all he can hear is his own echoing footsteps, his heartbeat, the blood rushing through his veins. He takes a sharp right turn once he gets down the stairs, closes his eyes and leans against the courtyard wall to catch his breath. After he’s sure he’s not going to have a panic attack, he opens his eyes again, stares up at the dark sky above him. The stars taunt him. He cranes his neck to see how high the entrance hall roof is and concludes, maybe a bit recklessly, that he can climb it. So he does.

He loses track of time, sitting on the roof, but he figures it’s been another hour by the time the doors of the entrance hall open and light spills out onto the ground below him. Students move in pockets, walking out toward the gate. Their voices carry up to him, debating whether they should all go for a drink at the Three Broomsticks or the Hog’s Head, and fade as they wander out of the grounds and toward Hogsmeade. He watches Blaise and Pansy exit together, speaking too low for him to hear, loses them in the darkness as they get closer and closer to the gate. Then, finally, the three Weasleys, Potter, and Granger, four of them having the same debate as most of the those who already left ahead of them. 

“What’s your vote, George?” Potter asks. 

“George votes Hog’s Head,” the Weaslette says. “Don’t you, George?”

“I think I’m just going to go home, actually,” Weasley answers. Draco can see him rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m not exactly up for a crowd right now.” 

“You should--” the other Weasley starts, but Granger elbows him. Draco can see her bushy head of hair shaking, can easily imagine her scolding expression. He rolls his eyes as just the thought of it. 

“You lot go on,” Weasley says, kicking at the ground. “I’m going to hang around here a bit before I leave. Get a better look at the tapestry maybe.” Draco watches the four of them walk toward the gate and looks back down to see Weasley staring up at him. He jerks back in surprise, fully caught, then glances down again. Weasley’s climbing up the side of the building exactly like he did. He frowns and sits back, waits for Weasley to reach him, and when he does, Draco scoots over just a fraction, gives him minimal room to sit down. 

“So,” Weasley says after a long silence, pulling his knees close to his chest, “it’s the strangest thing. It turns out Fred and me were a bit bullying shit.” Draco hums his agreement but says nothing. “You weren’t exactly one to talk, you know.”

“I know,” Draco says dryly. “The difference, you see, between people like my friends and me, and people like you and your family and your friends, is that we _know_ what we are. You lot think you’re above reproach, that nothing you do can be _bad_ because you’re _good_ people.” 

“I don’t think it’s quite like _that_ ,” Weasley says, annoyed, but then, softer, “Is Montague still in St. Mungo’s?”

“As far as I know, yes,” Draco says. Weasley squirms uncomfortably for a moment. 

“How do you feel about Muggleborns now?” he asks. Draco looks at him sharply. Weasley simply raises his eyebrows. Draco bites his lip and looks away.

“Well, I certainly don’t still believe blood status matters at all, for one thing,” he says. “I mean, we lost the war, first of all, and second, _I_ lost my magic. It’s given me a rather deep appreciation for Muggleborns.” He pauses, considering, then adds, “And Muggles, too.” Weasley looks at him, but Draco keeps staring forward, doesn’t want to see the look in Weasley’s eyes. 

“And what Luna said in there,” Weasley says, “is that true?” Draco swallows, hugs his knees.

“Yeah.” He rubs at a spot of dirt on his shoe. “Everywhere in that house was full of terrors at that time. The cellar should’ve been too, and it was, I suppose, before Luna got there, but...it was nice to just hear her voice. She was so full of hope and I could never understand why. Even during Easter holidays, when I was home again--she’d been there for months by then. I thought for sure the light in her would’ve gone, but...it was there still. After she left - escaped - there were still three days left before I caught the train back to Hogwarts. It felt like all the hope had left the Manor.” He sighs. “And me.” 

It’s quiet for a long time, and he can sense Weasley’s eyes on him, still refuses to look. He turns his head up to the sky instead, tries to discern all the stars and constellations he can see. He names both of his mother’s cousins, her still-living sister, himself. He thinks he sees her father too, but before he can orient it enough to be sure, Weasley pokes him in the shin. 

“Excuse you,” Draco snaps. 

“You don’t want to go to Hogsmeade, do you?” Weasley asks. Draco looks at him finally, observes the weariness on his face. He’s lighter today than he was a month ago, Draco can tell easily, especially this close, but there’s an uneven look to him still, grief and life and all the rest still pushing down on him in the center. Draco gets a wild urge to ask if Weasley needs help with the weight of it all, like the way Draco takes care of shipments that come in at work while Weasley’s at lunch or making a Gringotts run. But then, well, he does that stuff at the shop without asking, or being told, or anything, so.

“Merlin, no,” he says. “Please tell me you’re going back to Diagon.”

“I am,” Weasley nods. “Side-Along?” Draco moves toward the edge of the roof, readying to climb down. He looks over again, meets Weasley’s eyes.

“Gladly.”

\---

Over the next week, he gets visits from Blaise and Pansy at work - Pansy on Tuesday just before closing, Blaise at lunchtime on Wednesday. It’s as good a study in contrasts as anyone could ever get.

“Thank you for what you said, at the memorial, I mean,” Pansy says. Blaise gives a single, imperceptible nod.

“I’ve missed you,” Pansy says. Blaise purses his lips for a fraction of a second.

“Please tell me--are you ready? To spend time with me again, and Blaise?” Pansy says. Blaise tilts his head and drops his gaze to the floor. 

“I _miss_ you,” Pansy says.

Blaise says, “I _miss_ you.”

Draco is ready, he tells them. He’s missed them, too, can’t wait to start spending time with them again, to see how they’ve changed in the last year, to cope with them, to learn how they fit into each other’s lives now. He wants them to have dinner at the Manor with his family again, wants them to meet Calliope. He can’t wait to tell Meriweather.

“So,” Pansy says, looking around the shop with her lip curled, clutching her handbag like something awful is about to happen to it, “you’re working here, then. For a Weasley.”

“So,” Blaise says, casting haughty eyes around with a tightness in his jaw, “this is what you’ve been doing. Working. For a Weasley.”

Draco shrugs with one shoulder, careful not to glance over at the next shelf, where he knows Weasley is hiding, hovering, turned with his right side toward Draco so he can eavesdrop on the conversation. 

“It’s not quite as bad as you’d think,” Draco says, a considering lilt to his voice. 

\---

A few weeks later, just before Draco’s birthday, his parents go on a short little vacation to Spain. It’s Meriweather’s suggestion, to get them out of the house and into the sun, to spend time together away from where all this disaster occurred. They ask Draco to watch over the Manor, so he does of course, and has a sleep full of nightmares the first day. He dreads going back again after work, and the next day very casually suggests to Weasley that he can stay for an overnight shift and do stock. He gets a deeply incredulous look in return.

“No, Malfoy,” Weasley says slowly, narrowing his eyes at Draco. “Why would you even want to?”

“I don’t,” Draco snaps, falling back on age-old grouchiness to excuse him from admitting the truth. “I just thought your mess of a shop could use some extra help.” 

“Mmhmm,” Weasley says. There's a suspicious glint in his eyes that Draco doesn't much care for. “Let's try again: why would you want to stay here overnight?” Draco purses his lips and says nothing, busies himself with an unnecessary menial task. “If you don't talk, I have no choice but to come to my own conclusions, you know,” Weasley says. Draco raises an eyebrow at him, an unspoken dare. Weasley grins.

“Okay,” he starts, “well, if you want to stay here, then it must mean you _really_ don't want to go home for the night, so there must be something there you want to avoid. You’re in your own place now, you said? Bad neighbors? Or, no, wait - _you’re_ the bad neighbor, and everyone else wants to hex you into Wales. Perfectly understandable.” Draco gives Weasley a very dramatic eye roll, and Weasley laughs at him, right in his face. 

“Ooh, is there some sort of wild beast loose in your home?” Weasley says, hopping up to sit on the counter next to where Draco is sorting the Self-Propelling Custard Pies by flavor. He looks delighted. Draco glares briefly and then looks away from him, feigns obsessive focus on the pies. “I’m sure you have loads of expensive stuff for a niffler to snatch up. Have doxies taken over? Is the garden infested with flesh-eating slugs? Or is it a boggart, perhaps?”

“This is painful,” Draco groans, shoving a lone blueberry custard pie into its own pile. “I’ll just tell you if it’ll make you stop thinking out loud.” Weasley raises his eyebrows expectantly and Draco sighs. “My parents have gone on a little holiday, and I’m meant to be watching the Manor in their absence.” He swallows, looks down at the pies again, starts straightening the boxes. “Being there alone, however, gives me particularly awful nightmares, so...if I could just spend as little time as possible there, by myself, then it would be ideal.” Weasley is quiet for a few moments, and Draco thinks he’s earned some sympathy, is about to ask again if he can stay overnight at the shop, but Weasley speaks first.

“So come to dinner at the Burrow.” Draco drops a box, pulls a face at Weasley. 

“Come to dinner at the _what_?” he asks. Weasley rolls his eyes.

“The Burrow,” he says. “My _home_. Well, my family home, anyway.” Draco’s jaw drops. It takes him a second to recover from the shock.

“Not to be rude--”

“That’s a first,” Weasley says dryly.

“--but somehow I doubt that any member of your family would be pleased to have me in their home.” 

“It won’t be a big deal,” Weasley says, and Draco knows it’s a thorough lie, not just because it _obviously_ is, but also because of the way Weasley shifts his gaze when he says it, a sudden interest in a stain on his jeans that doesn’t exist.

“Right,” Draco says, waiting for Weasley to acknowledge the joke. Instead, Weasley just hops off the counter.

“Do you want to change clothes before dinner then?” he asks, heading toward the door. “The Burrow’s probably not the place for those button-ups you always wear under all the magenta. Do you even own a t-shirt or are you too rich for jersey knit?” Draco stares after him, slack-jawed.

“Right,” he repeats, distantly, before his brain sprints forward. “And I do own t-shirts, thank you very much,” he says flatly. Weasley looks back at him from the door, dubious. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So they Apparate to Wiltshire, down the isolated street from the Malfoy Manor, and Draco tries not to think about the fact that the last Weasley who was in this house was a prisoner as they walk through the gate, past the hedges, to the door. 

“It didn’t look like this,” Draco says, failing spectacularly in his attempts at forgetting that day, and the way the past keeps brushing up against him. “When your brother was here, I mean.” He holds his breath, pauses, waiting for the dinner offer to be rescinded. 

“Yeah, I figured,” Weasley says easily. “You said your parents have been changing stuff around.” He looks at Draco and shrugs. “It’s brighter than I imagined. Anyway, I still don’t think you own a t-shirt.” Draco rolls his eyes, turns to walk to his bedroom before his face can betray the relief he feels. Weasley follows him the entire way, spinning around sometimes to take in the whole room or hallway of wherever they’re passing through, poking his head into darkened rooms and humming for one reason or another. He follows Draco into the bedroom, even, and Draco thinks it might have been an absentminded mistake, by the way Weasley blinks and shakes his head suddenly, whipping his head around to look at Draco with wide eyes for approximately two seconds. But he stays anyway, flops down on the green velvet settee on the wall opposite Draco’s bed with such practiced coolness that one might think he belonged there. 

Draco looks away, unnerved, and crosses to the mahogany wardrobe. His mother convinced him to keep half of his clothes at the Manor when he moved out, bribed him into it by offering to buy him a closetful of new shirts and trousers and shoes, which is how he got the dragon skin boots he’s currently wearing. There’s exactly one t-shirt in here, _thank Merlin_ , and Draco throws it over the wardrobe door facing Weasley, hooks the hanger there for Weasley to see it properly and shuffles forward so that he’s hidden behind the door, unbuttons his shirt and listens to Weasley laughing. He tugs the shirt over his head before he realizes that it’s pale pink, which makes him pause for just a moment, look at himself in the mirror at the back of the wardrobe, behind all the other clothes. It’s not his best color, by any means - there was a reason he left it here - and he could drag Weasley to Spinner’s End, choose from the dozens of shirts there, but...well, it’s not like he’s got anyone to impress at a place called _the Burrow_ , which is a great name for the pathetic hole in the ground he assumes makes up the Weasley family home. _Don’t overthink this_ , he tells himself. _There’s not even anything to overthink!_

“Wine?” he hears himself asking as he closes the wardrobe doors. He and Weasley give each other equally startled looks, and he all but runs out of the room. Weasley follows him again, has to nearly jog at first to catch up, but they end up in the wine cellar, where Draco grabs the nearest bottle and turns back again, pulls Weasley along by the elbow and rushes out before Weasley can catch the name on all the labels and make a scene about it.

They Apparate then to Ottery St. Catchpole. It’s a little town in Devon - Draco’s heard of it before, once or twice - and when Draco turns, he can see a small village down the hill to his left, but Weasley heads down the other side, so Draco follows. It’s a rather long walk, which Weasley must realize, because he glances at Draco after a couple of minutes and says, “I suppose I should’ve Apparated us closer, but I like the walk. Fred and me used to go into the village all the time. There was a cute Muggle girl at a shop down there - she doesn’t work there anymore - she was very impressed by card tricks.” 

“You mean that Muggle rubbish we’ve got in the corner of the shop?” Draco asks. He’s stacked enough of those card boxes to be well over them. 

“Pick a card, any card,” Weasley says in a singsong voice. “Fred liked to pull coins out of her ear. _Our_ coins, by the way. Sickles. Nearly got us in a bit of trouble.”

“Mmhmm,” Draco says, as they walk through yet another meadow. “And what about you?” Weasley throws him a quizzical look. “I mean, what kind of Muggle tricks did you--do--with the cute girl?” Weasley shrugs.

“Didn’t really at all,” he says. “I’m not, like--interested--in girls. I mostly went along just to give Fred some competition.” Draco lets out a small laugh. He feels relieved, thankful that his intuition wasn’t so far off as he thought it was on Valentine’s Day. He’s about to say as much, trying to form the sentence in a way that’s not as mean as it could easily sound, but then they come to the other side of the meadow, and he sees it.

The Burrow is tall and crooked and clearly held up by magic, judging by the way some of the levels are leaning. There are multiple chimneys, though Draco can’t fathom why. The base of the house is stone, and it takes a few moments, but as they approach it, Draco realizes what it looks like, and what it was - a large pigpen, presumably on land next to what was surely a big, beautiful house which, for some reason, is no longer standing. The Weasleys must have added on, upward, with each new child, or something. They pass a chicken coop and a little shack of a garage, and Draco is so busy focusing on the screeching in his head - _A literal pigpen!_ If only he had known about this when they were in school! Oh, the taunts he could’ve spat out at them all, that jokes that would have written themselves! - that he doesn’t realize they’re at the door until he hears the reluctant creak as Weasley opens it, and suddenly he’s standing in the doorway of the Weasley family home.

A conflicted chorus greets them, happily calling Weasley’s name at first, then almost immediately dropping dead when they see Draco. It’s comical, or will be later, at least. Right now it ramps up the light drizzle of anxiety in Draco’s lungs to a heavy rain. He glances around, wide-eyed, before turning back to Weasley - his boss, _his_ Weasley, a sort of savior here, _please_.

“You all know Malfoy,” Weasley says, gives a funny little shrug at Draco, and then disappears further into the house. Draco stares after him, stricken, for several seconds, mouth poised in a tight ‘o’ shape. He looks back, finally, at the living room at large, takes in the sight of those staring back at him - five ginger-haired and freckled faces, a particularly codfish-faced Potter, Granger looking more confused than probably ever in her life, and a beautiful young woman with an angry expression and unnaturally silver hair who he recognizes vaguely as Fleur Delacour. Arthur Weasley, balding and bespectacled, has his hands on the armrests of his worn down, paisley chair, like he’s ready to catapult to his feet if Draco gives him a reason. 

“Right,” Draco says into the quiet, which would be silence if not for a loud ticking coming from somewhere on a wall where he dares not look. His eyes travel to the one he knows as Percy, horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the light. His father, Draco recalls, dealt with Percy at the Ministry in the beginning of the war, when Percy was freezing out his family, and when Lucius still had control of things. Draco tagged along to the Ministry a few times that summer, was present when his father took the wary weasel out to lunch, made him promises of access to higher, better, more powerful connections, and Percy Weasley ate it up. Draco thought it was pathetic then, and he thinks it’s pathetic now, the way this Weasley is cringing and avoiding Draco’s eyes. It’s doubtful that anyone else in the room even knows about that lunch, and it’s not like Draco has plans to ever tell them, but he feels a punch of vindictive satisfaction, seeing Percy squirm, so he simply nods once and says, “Percy,” in a pleasant tone of acknowledgement. A flush rises instantly to Percy’s face and he casts a panicked glance toward his father, but Arthur Weasley is still eyeing Draco, all potential energy, a predator waiting to pounce. 

“Right,” Draco says again, dropping his gaze to the floor, which could use a more thorough sweeping than whatever it’s been given in recent memory. There’s still no sign of Weasley - his alleged savior, which, honestly, Draco could kick himself over. He thought that he and Weasley were becoming--well, not friends, certainly, but. Something less exhausting than enemies, something more enjoyable than employer-and-employee, something other than acquaintances. But clearly he was wrong, if Weasley’s brought him here and then just left him to languish in awkwardness, sweat on his palms making the wine bottle slippery in his hands. This will be a great story for his next appointment with Meriweather, who’s been harping on about him properly befriending Weasley since the memorial at Hogwarts. Perhaps his tale of foolish trust and brutal abandonment will make her shut up.

“Well,” Draco says, glancing around the room again, swallowing. “I suppose I’ll just be goi--”

“Draco, dear!” a jolly voice comes calling down the hall, and in the moment it takes for him to whip his head to look, a little plump woman wearing an apron appears, with Weasley trailing behind her. Draco looks from Molly Weasley to her son, who raises his eyebrows innocently, and back. “I’m Molly, of course,” she says, shaking Draco’s hand enthusiastically - he prays she can’t feel it tremble - and then swiping her arm over her forehead. “Dinner’s almost ready. I hope you like roast.”

“Sure,” Draco says, dazed and anxious, just as Arthur, exclaims, “ _What?!_ ” Molly waves dismissively, barely sparing her husband a glance. 

“George explained,” she says to Draco, “it’s no imposition at all.” Behind her, Weasley shrugs.

“Right,” Draco says. He can’t seem to stop saying it tonight, actually. He feels a bit defective. Realizing he’s still holding a bottle of wine at his side by its neck, he holds it out to her, says, “Here. For dinner.” Molly makes a surprised little sound as she takes it from him, her smile wavering as she looks at the label.

“Oh,” she says, “no, we can’t accept this, it’s far too--”

“It wasn’t,” Draco blurts out. The very last thing he wants right now is for money to be brought into this. Fleur Delacour jumps up off the couch and walks over, leans over Molly’s shoulder to scrutinize the bottle. His palms are still sweating, hands ever shaking. He swallows again. “Weasley--your son--he picked it out, at a Muggle shop on the way.” Fleur looks up at him with narrowed eyes. She’s French, he realizes; she can read the label. She’s onto him. He bites his lip.

He directs a nervous glance at Weasley, who plays along easily, says, “Yeah, Mum, don’t worry, it was nothing. Might not even be any good.” Molly brightens again, tentatively, and turns to Fleur. 

“Well, what do you think? Is this a decent bottle then?” she asks.

Fleur smiles, then looks directly at Draco and says, “ _Oui_ , he has good taste in wine, Molly.” When Molly heads back into the kitchen, Fleur rounds on Draco, hisses, “ _Tu as menti. Pourquoi?_ ” Draco blinks in surprise at her callout of his lie.

“ _Pardon?_ ” he says, accent coming out instinctively despite his discomfort. He’s not used to speaking French anywhere in England outside his own home.

“ _Vin de Mal Foi?_ ” she says, one eyebrow raised accusingly, before clarifying angrily that she grew up near those vineyards, knows that his family owns them, makes that wine. It’s true - his ancestors left France eons ago, but an inconceivably distant branch of his father’s family remains to this day in Loire Valley, and centuries-old magic connects the wine cellar of Malfoy Manor to that of the Muggle Malfoy patriarch whom they barely acknowledge exists. Draco clears his throat, tries to feel grateful for the opportunity to keep up his French fluency, says quietly to Fleur that he didn’t want to makes things more uncomfortable than they already are, to make Molly feel bad about money when that has nothing to do with the situation at hand, figures the lie was worth it, and that he didn’t expect anyone here to have the ability to read French. 

Fleur’s eyes narrow further and further as he explains, nearly slits by the time he’s done. He stares at her, waiting for her to shout at him maybe, or else reveal his lie to the whole room, but after half a minute she flounces away, back to the sofa, clutches the arm of one of the brothers - the oldest one, maybe, by the look of him, although that may be just the nasty jagged scar across his jaw - and begins whispering to him. Draco shifts uncomfortably under his gaze and glances at Weasley, who’s wearing an expression that tells Draco he’s going to have to explain the wine thing again later, in English. Draco cringes and looks back over at Fleur, where the brother is now getting to his feet - good god, he’s just as tall as Draco - and approaching Draco with an outstretched hand. 

“Welcome to the Burrow, Malfoy,” he says, to the astonished looks of everyone else in the room. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Bill.” Draco shakes his hand, but only momentarily - Bill has a friendly but astute look about him, and Draco is certain that Bill will be able to detect the tremors in his hand if it’s held for too long. Bill doesn’t seem to mind. “I assume you recognized my wife,” he says, gesturing back to Fleur.

“Yes,” Draco says, glancing at her, but his eyes drift to Granger, who is looking uncannily perceptive herself, and Draco wonders, horribly, if Granger knows French as well.

“Malfoy,” Weasley says, and Draco is grateful for the excuse to look away from the others, to focus on someone he knows, who doesn’t make him feel like he’s about to be murdered swiftly and without recourse. “Tour?” Weasley doesn’t wait for an answer, just spins on his heel and swings his arms out broadly to the living room. 

“This is the living room,” he says. 

“Brilliant,” Draco says with a sigh, rolling his eyes, as Weasley turns and gestures for Draco to follow, which is how Draco learns that the Burrow is essentially made of stairs, and any rooms or landings are deceptive in their sturdiness because they are, in fact, simply added on to make the stairs livable. Ginny’s room is on the first floor - the door is closed when they pass, and Weasley says, “She’ll hex me if I even pretend to open it,” and then makes an uncanny creaking sound with his mouth, and Draco hears the girl’s voice shouting, “Don’t make me hex you, George Weasley!” and exchanges smirks with Weasley - and Percy’s on the second. Weasley does the same thing with that door, and from the living room, Percy yells, “ _George!_ ” which makes Weasley laugh so hard he almost chokes. 

“He hasn’t lived here in four years and he still reacts exactly the same way as he always did,” Weasley says, once he’s calmed down. He pauses for a moment, then says, “This was mine and Fred’s room,” and opens the door to the room across the landing from Percy’s. Draco doesn’t know if he’s supposed to step inside, but he does anyway, past Weasley standing with his arm stretched over the door. It’s small for two people, probably even by Weasley standards, and a mostly empty room, a few boxes here and there in the corners, some prototype Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes products scattered on the bedside table and across the desk. A faint scent of smoke catches Draco by surprise. 

“Why does it smell like--?” Draco starts, trying to find the correct word.

“Something just exploded?” Weasley provides. Draco looks back at him, sees a sly smile form on his face, and thinks, _Huh._ “We were always experimenting, you see. Some were more, ah, volatile than others. Well, alright, you’ve seen all our product lines - _most_ were volatile,” Weasley says. “Turns out all the explosions gave the place a permanent aroma. A rather sexy one, I think.” 

“Right,” Draco says dryly, rolling his eyes, walking back out of the room as Weasley points to the ceiling.

“Onward and upward!” The third floor has two rooms again. Weasley opens Bill’s door - no shouting from downstairs this time - and Draco peeks inside. A years-old Puddlemere United poster adorns the wall above the bed, which is so small Draco has to assume that Bill’s feet dangled off the edge of it by the time he graduated Hogwarts and moved out, and a dusty Prefect badge on the desk by the door. 

“He was a Prefect?” Draco says. 

“I know, right?” Weasley says. “He seems too cool for it. Not like Percy or Hermione. Or _you_.” Draco raises an eyebrow at him. Weasley snickers. Across the landing is Charlie’s room, cluttered with images of dragons and a few different Quidditch teams. “Bet you’d never guess he was a Prefect either,” Weasley says, which Draco has to admit is true. 

They make quick work of the rest of the house - “Mum and Dad’s room, obviously off limits,” Weasley says on the fourth floor, and then above that, “Ron’s room, which I’d show you but, it’s such a pity, I actually like the poor sap,” and then, “There’s a ghoul in the attic above his room though, if you want to meet him,” which Draco doesn’t - and by the time they return to the ground floor, dinner is being served at a long table outside beside the garden. Draco and Weasley take seats across from Bill and Fleur at the end of the table, Draco to Weasley’s right - “So I can hear anything you’ve got to say about my family, Malfoy,” Weasley says sternly, tapping at his ear. Draco rolls his eyes as plates of potatoes, roast beef, and veg begin levitating around the table.

“Just for that display of distrust, Weasley,” Draco says smoothly, spearing some potatoes with his fork and distributing them to his own plate as they float by - it’s brutish, sure, but it is a bit fun, rather like going after the Snitch - “I’m not going to say _anything_ all dinner.” 

“Oh?” Weasley says happily, shoveling a potato into his mouth. “Is that a promise?”

“Sounds more like a challenge,” says Bill, raising his eyebrows at Draco and grinning mischievously at his brother. Draco’s eyes go wide and Fleur leans across the table to pat him on the arm.

“I am sorry,” she whispers, accent thick around the words. “This will be a difficult dinner for you. I promise they are not all like this.” 

It’s not as bad as she has him expecting, though. Mostly it’s just Weasley constantly pestering him, stealing green beans off his plate and mocking him for one thing or another at every turn, and Bill attempting to make friendly conversation, asking Draco questions that sound sincere and probably even are, or would be, at least, if he wasn’t obviously trying to just make Draco talk. Throughout the onslaught, Draco remains steadfastly quiet, pursing his lips after nearly every bite of food, swallowing what would be sneering responses to Weasley and awkward, stilted answers to Bill. It’s rather easy, actually - the Weasleys are certainly a kind of terror, but this is nothing compared to sitting at a table full of Death Eaters, trying to not let them see him sweat - but he puts on a show like it’s a great inconvenience, slips Fleur little eye rolls when Weasley and her husband aren’t looking, and she gives him knowing smiles as she sips her wine. Draco can be extremely charming when he wants.

Draco almost forgets anyone else is here until, down the table, Molly stands and calls for Bill to start collecting the cleared plates, and everyone starts heading into the house again. A chill of dread comes over Draco suddenly at the thought of staying any longer, of having to carry on real conversations with these people he doesn’t know and many he doesn’t even like. Anxiety is climbing up his ribs again as they round into the living room, but then Weasley says, “We’ve got to get back to the shop, Mum. Overnight stock.” Draco whips around to stare but catches himself, passes it off as looking at the clock on the wall, before he actually is looking at the clock on the wall. 

It’s not a normal clock, in that there are nine hands and zero numbers. Each Weasley has their own clock hand, which can point around the clock to words like “Work,” “Traveling,” “Lost,” “Hospital,” and “School.” Except for Charlie’s, which points to “Work,” all of them are currently on “Home,” even Fred’s. Draco feels a hollow little echo in his chest at that. 

“Does this track each of you?” he asks, stepping closer and squinting at it. Molly appears at his left side. 

“Oh yes,” she says, taking the clock down off the wall and holding it so Draco can have a better look. “I’ve been meaning to add Harry and Hermione and Fleur.” She runs her hand over the face of it. “Fred’s has been on ‘Home,’ ever since….” Draco’s grateful she doesn’t finish the sentence, almost as grateful as he is that Fred’s hasn’t been pointing to anything like “Prison” or “Mortal Peril” since he died.

“Molly,” Arthur says gruffly. 

“You made this yourself?” Draco asks, before Molly can turn to look at her husband. She nods, smiles at him.

“Ages ago,” she says. “It was more experimental than anything. I was younger then - I just wanted to see if it could be done.”

“This is really incredible magic,” Draco says quietly. “My mother--she would love to have something like this.” Molly looks at him, and he’s terrified, all of a sudden, to look back at her, turns instead to Weasley, who has an odd expression on his face. “Right,” he says once more. “Overnight shift then, Weasley? I mean, really? Must we?”

“Don’t think you’re getting out of it, Malfoy,” Weasley says loudly, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him toward the door, calling back to Molly, “Thanks for dinner, Mum. I’ll see you soon!” Once outside and halfway through the meadow, Draco turns to him again.

“So we really are doing overnight stock?” he asks. “You could’ve just let me stay.” Weasley gives him a confused look. 

“What?” he says. “No, of course we’re not doing that. You really are a bit of a dunderhead sometimes, do you know that?”

“Well, then, _what_ are we doing?” Draco asks, bristling a bit at the insult, boring as it is, because he’s had to bite his tongue all evening.

“Oh,” Weasley says, like there’s been a hitch in his plan, although Draco can’t figure what that could be. “Well, I thought. I mean, you don’t want to be alone in the house, right?”

“Yes,” Draco says, a question, and then, “Oh. Oh! Do you--Merlin, don’t make me ask you to stay the night at my family’s house, Weasley.” Weasley scoffs.

“Please,” he says. “As if I want to. _My_ plan is to trick you into getting spectacularly drunk and then, after you’ve passed out, steal from every room and leave.”

“Well, who could say no to _that_?” Draco says dryly, holding out his arm. “Try to Apparate a bit closer this time. You’ve already made me do more than a fair share of hiking tonight.”

\---

Draco does get drunk, gives Weasley a proper tour of the Manor, and talks too much, tells Weasley...far too much. “No, you imbecile, Pansy and I were never actually _together_. I just wasn't interested in being out to the whole school and she cared enough to cover for me,” as Weasley peeks into the guest room where Pansy always slept when she visited, and, “Look, I’m well aware that everyone thinks I had some sort of cold, unfeeling, sterile upbringing, but it wasn't like that,” as they stand on a balcony overlooking the small stone stage in the garden where Draco used to carry out elaborate performances and soliloquies while his parents watched from picturesque little chairs and applauded encouragingly, and, “Dumbledore made me an offer on the tower that night. Said the Order could fake the deaths of my family and me, could protect us. I should've said yes. I wanted to. I was about to. But I hesitated. Bellatrix showed up, and the Carrows--it was too late,” as they finish the second bottle in Draco’s bedroom, Draco sitting on his enormous bed and Weasley stretched out on the settee. 

But Weasley does, too, gets drunk and talks too much. Tells Draco too much about Fred, about the guilt buried in his bones for not being there when it happened, about the funeral he barely even remembers. Tells Draco about starting the business, about how strained it was between him and Fred and their mother, about how proud it makes him to walk into the shop every morning, even on his worst days. Tells Draco about hooking up with Lee Jordan a couple of times at Hogwarts, about befriending the giant squid, about struggling to learn all the housework charms after moving out of the Burrow. 

“See, _that’s_ what I need,” Draco says, standing, intending to go into the bathroom to brush his teeth, then swaying unpleasantly, and sitting down again. “ _That’s_ why I need my magic back. All the little spells at my house that I can’t do.” He cradles his head in his trembling hands, pouts at Weasley, who looks back at him with bleary eyes and a lopsided smile. “D’you know, I’ve got a shower that only sprays cold water, a closet that needs expanding, a window that can’t get clean with the Muggle stuff--” he pauses, ticking it all off on his fingers, trying to remember the running list he has at home of things to fix, but his brain stops at the window. “And--ah--other stuff. Things.”

“Mmm,” Weasley hums knowingly. “Other stuff and things will always get you.”

“Indeed,” Draco says, slumping. Exhaustion is swiftly overtaking him. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says.

“What?” Weasley asks, shifting on the settee, settling one arm behind his head and closing his eyes.

“I can’t stay awake much longer,” Draco says morosely, “and you’re going to steal from every room and leave me alone here.” Weasley snorts, opens one eye to look at Draco. 

“Malfoy,” he says, “I can’t even stand up right now. ‘m not going to steal from you.”

“Promise?” Draco mutters, finally giving in to his sleepiness and moving to lie down across the duvet. 

“Promise,” Weasley says. Draco curls up on the sheets, looks into Weasley’s one open eye.

“Or leave me alone here?” he asks faintly, his own eyelids slipping closed.

“Won’t leave you alone here,” Weasley says. “Promise.” Draco tries to utter a word of appreciation, but he doesn’t think it manages to make it out of his mouth before he falls asleep. 

He wakes up hungover, obviously, and at 7:00 exactly, because this is just what his body does now. He wants to groan _so badly_ , feels it in his bones and muscles, but the mere thought of sound makes his pounding headache ramp up to booming. Is this what people his age are supposed to be doing? Is this what they enjoy? Can’t be. He should...he should vomit, right? He would feel better, probably, but he’s just basing that assumption on the only other time in his life when he was this hungover, which was the morning after O.W.L. exams ended, after all of the Slytherin fifth years drank their combined weight in firewhiskey and mead in celebration. 

Draco woke up that morning to the news that his father was arrested at the Department of Mysteries, was now in Azkaban. He threw up twice before Snape found him in the bathroom, knelt down next to him and thrust a small bottle of painfully bright orange liquid in his face. It eradicated the worst of the nausea, but the heavy, sinking sensation in his lungs, the stinging in his throat, the sharp understanding that things were changed now, and would never go back to how they were before - those stayed. Those stay.

Potion. Right. That’s what he needs right now. To feel like a human being again.

It requires getting up though, so Draco isn’t sold on the idea until he realizes that the curious, soft sound he’s hearing is that of another person breathing. Alarm takes over all of Draco’s functions, forces him to crack open his eyes, ever slightly, and prods his brain to observe the body curled up on his settee - long limbs, broad chest, freckled face, flaming red hair, missing ear - and form it into a recognizable person, determine whether it is friend or foe.

George.

Right.

Not foe, then. 

Friend. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. His head pounds. Merlin, he needs that potion. Nothing for it now. Very, very slowly, and careful not to sigh, or twist off the bed, or make any noise or any sudden movements at all - and in fact, to make as few movements as possible in general, sudden or otherwise - he gets to his feet and makes his way down the hall, and then downstairs to his parents’ floor, to the room full of oddities and artefacts that his father collects. Lucius finds them all fascinating or entertaining, or sometimes just pretty, as is the case with the enormous wall of potions all in a display shelf behind glass, like a giant version of Calliope’s medicine cabinet. Draco's shaking hands open the glass door and trail lightly over clear crystal vials of various potions, ranging from harmless and healing to murderous and malevolent, all sorted in alphabetical order by name. He searches among the H’s for two full minutes before remembering that it’s not actually _called_ Hangover Potion, which is stupid. He does sigh then, and it hurts, but he finds what he’s looking for there amid the A’s - Awake Potion, between Arcanus Draught and Babbling Beverage. He takes one and pops the stopper off after a few moments of fumbling, tips his head back and swallows it all in one swig. He feels thoroughly better instantly, a significant difference from that morning in fifth year.

He blinks into clear vision and sees that there are still a few vials of Awake Potion left. He takes another, for George, and hopes he has time to make his own and refill the vials before his father notices any of them are missing. He’s closing the glass door again when he notices a bottle of shining pearly lilac and remembers that odd third smell when he brewed Amortentia back in January, recalls the apparently perpetual scent of smoke from the second floor of the Burrow last night. “How strange,” he mumbles to himself, shaking his head, before he heads back upstairs. 

He showers quickly, pulls on some fresh clothes, and goes to the small kitchen on his floor to begin cooking breakfast. He puts the kettle on, sets out two plates, poaches two eggs, and fries four rashers of bacon, four mushrooms, and two tomatoes. He’s just finished putting food on the plates and is tossing the teabags in the bin when George walks in, looking miserable and confused. 

“Here,” Draco says - George winces - and pushes the little bottle of orange potion across the granite countertop. George takes it, squints at it, makes a face like the squinting hurts him, and then drinks it all down. Draco can see it take instantaneous effect, the way George’s bleary eyes clear, his sore muscles relaxing with relief. 

“That’s magic, that is,” George says, giving Draco a small, grateful smile. He looks down then at the breakfast, at the tea, waiting for him. He blinks at it, looks up at Draco and blinks some more. Draco pauses, his own fork halfway to his mouth with a bit of mushroom. Perhaps the potion George just drank was too old, had lost some of its efficacy, and George’s body has recovered but his brain is still struggling. Draco’s just about to recommend another vial when George looks back down at the food and says, “You cooked me breakfast.”

Draco pauses again. At this rate he’ll never get to eat these mushrooms. 

“Yes,” he says slowly. “We’ve still got work today, you know. And you’re useless without any food in your stomach.” George looks at him again, considering, and finally leans against the counter and picks up a fork. They eat in silence - the mushrooms are perfectly cooked, Draco is pleased to taste - and when their plates are clean, Draco takes them up, turns back toward the sink. 

“Think I’ve figured you out, Malfoy,” George says as Draco rinses the dishes. Draco hums, barely listening, focusing on trying to still his hands under the water. “You really are every bit like a snake.” Draco turns just enough to let George see him roll his eyes before turning away again, taking soap to the plates and forks, trying not to let George’s knowing smile and playful eyes unsettle him. 

“You are, though,” George continues, more quietly this time, more thoughtful, appreciative, somehow. “You keep on trying to convince everyone that you’re like, dangerous, and mean and nasty and cruel.”

“I think you’ll find that I am, in fact, all of those things,” Draco says snidely, reaching for a towel.

“Obviously,” George concedes in a dismissive tone. “You want people to stay away from you because you don’t have the patience for them, and it’s easier to just lash out when they make you nervous than to, for example, learn to be a functional member of society.” Draco frowns as he dries a plate. He _is_ learning, thanks very much. He can be functional. Meriweather says so. “But under all the hard scales and the fangs and all - and not even very far under, mind,” George says, “you’re actually quite soft.” 

_Soft._ The only other person who’s ever called Draco that was Bellatrix Lestrange. It earned her a terrible curse from her sister as well as a barely botched poisoning from her brother-in-law, and Draco’s always wondered if the poison would’ve worked if his mother had brewed it instead of his father. It made him feel ashamed at the time, that word, a badge confirming his worst fear, that he didn’t have what it took to be...whatever he needed to be in order to protect himself, his family. He was fresh from the embarrassment of that night on the tower, already feeling it, and there his horrible aunt was, having witnessed his failure, having seen inside his head, and she was validating his anxiety, spitting it out in her best impression of a motherly tone, mocking him, telling him that he was right to worry, verifying that he wasn’t cut out for this, that he was going to suffer, to watch his parents die, to die himself, because he was soft, expendable, marked for death, just like Potter.

It sounds different from George’s mouth, though. George isn’t mocking him, or threatening him, or verifying his dread. George sounds...impressed. Almost proud. It makes Draco feel...warmed, from the inside out, like a tiny sun is rising over the horizon of his ribs. 

Still, the prospect of letting it stand, of agreeing, of looking at George’s face at all, right now, with this hanging in their air, is too much. So Draco falls back on his favorite standby. 

He spins around, throws his arm dramatically over his eyes and shrieks, “Oh nooo! You’ve discovered my most secret of secrets!” He peeks under this wrist and sees George jerk back in shock before easing into thrilled laughter. Draco puts both hands in his hair then, clutches it in clumps before smoothing his palms down the back of his neck, all in a grand show of utmost distress. “How can I go on now,” he howls, “when I previously swore that no mortal man who walks this earth shall uncover the abstruse enigma of my existence, the precious paradox of my being!”

“Is this one of those soliloquies you performed in your garden as a very strange child?” George says, grinning in delight. Draco throws himself forward and buries his face in his arms on the counter, nearly sending the empty vial flying.

“Make an oath to me now, you monster, that you will guard with your most clandestine securities the skeleton that you have so masterfully unearthed from beneath my feet!” Draco looks up and reaches out, clasps George’s hand tightly in his. “Swear to it, Weasley! Swear it!” he shouts. A raucous laugh bursts out of George as he squeezes Draco’s hand in return before he schools himself into grave earnestness. He raises his right hand and looks very soberly into Draco’s eyes. 

“I solemnly swear,” he says, and Draco gives him a fraction of a smile before resting his head on his arm again, takes a deep breath, and releases George’s hand, slapping the counter.

“And _scene_!” he exclaims, pulling himself up to full height and stepping back to take three deep bows as George applauds supportively. 

“You’re quite mad,” George says, sounding utterly entertained and approving. 

“You’re going to be late to work,” Draco says. “You’re not even dressed yet.” George scoffs.

“I can’t be late to work, Malfoy. I’m _the boss_ ,” he says, like it’s obvious. He pauses while Draco rolls his eyes, then adds, “It’s not like I have any clothes here. Side-Along to the shop?”

The next day, they get a shipment of a new product in, and while George is still at lunch, Draco opens the box to find jar after jar of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. He’s holding on in his hand, staring down at it, when George enters the stockroom. Draco looks up at him and George nods toward the bottle in his hand.

“We stopped selling that because of you,” he says quietly, “after that night...you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Draco says, looking back down. He holds a vial up to his eyes and scrutinizes it. He’s held the impossibly fine powder in his hand before, has felt it slipping between his fingers no matter how tightly he closed his fist. It’s blacker than black, like the wizards and witches in Peru found a way to catch and bottle the very substance of darkness - and, well, that’s how he used it, isn’t it?

“We promised Ron we’d never sell it again, because you were like, pure raging evil, or whatever,” George says, twirling his wand around his fingers, like he’s nervous or something, a rarity in him. “But that was before, you know,” he pauses, and when Draco looks at him, he darts his eyes away quickly. “Before I learned what you are.” Draco glances at the bottle again.

“Soft?” he offers. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees George look up again, sees George smile. 

“Yeah,” George says. “Think you can find a spot for them?” Draco places the jar back in its place and picks up the box. 

“Right next to the Decoy Detonators, I think,” he says, and walks out to make room on the shelf.


	5. Chapter 5

The day before his birthday, Draco goes to the Manor after his evening run with Calliope to discover that his parents have returned early from their holiday. He finds them in the ballroom, dancing to a romantic instrumental record playing quietly from the gramophone in the corner, his mother’s hand on his father’s shoulder, his father’s arm around her waist. Draco leans against the doorway, shoves his hands in his pockets, and watches them. 

He used to do this when he was very small, sneak down to the ballroom as his parents’ solstice parties were ending and they were the only ones left on the dance floor, to see if anything was changing between them, if their marriage was going to start falling apart like his friends’ parents’ were. But he always found them dancing slowly together, Narcissa resting her head on her husband’s chest, gazing up at him like he rescued her from some unspeakable horror, Lucius with a protective arm around his wife, looking down at her like he’d be ready to tear the world apart for her at a moment’s notice. It’s the same now, if a bit less subdued. Draco’s mother is giggling, a pink flush high on her cheeks. His father is chuckling, a smirk pressed against her hair, and twirling her. They only notice him as the music is dying, his mother smiling and laughing when she sees him. 

“Draco!” she says. Lucius glides and whirls her across the floor over to Draco, releases her so that she can take Draco’s hand to dance with him instead. It’s a more formal waltz this time, like she taught him the summer before fourth year. “You remember!” she exclaims, surprised, happy, and clearly a bit tipsy.

“Of course I remember, Mother,” Draco says, glancing anxiously down at their feet. “You gave me strict orders not to step on Pansy’s toes at the Yule Ball _or else_.”

“And did you?” she asks smugly.

“No,” Draco says, “I was a perfect gentleman. Kissed her hand at the end of the night and everything.” 

“Oh, you’re very sweet, my dear,” his mother says, stopping their dance abruptly and looking at him with shining, searching eyes. He gives her a small smile, bends down to kiss her hand as well, and when he looks back up she’s grinning again, laughing. 

“So the trip went well, then?” Draco asks, looking at his father. Lucius looks tired still, but in a pleasant way, the kind of tired that only comes from a vacation.

“Fairly well, yes,” Draco’s father says, smiling. Narcissa twists around to gaze up at him again, and Lucius holds out his arm to steady her. “Meriweather has some good advice, as it turns out.”

“Mmhmm,” Draco says, thinking of how obnoxiously satisfied she’ll be when he tells her about George, and dinner and breakfast and all. It’s certainly not anything he’ll be sharing with his parents anytime soon. 

“Merlin,” his mother says, pressing her palm to her forehead, blinking suddenly. “I believe I’ve had just half a glass of champagne too much, Lucius.”

“That sounds about right, darling,” Lucius drawls, amused, obviously endeared by the situation. “Perhaps you should go upstairs to bed.” Narcissa hums. 

“You do make a good argument,” she says, and pulls Draco in for a quick hug, placing her delicate hands on either side of his face as she pulls away. “My, you’ve grown up, Draco,” she says. Draco makes a skeptical face.

“I’m not even 19 yet, Mother,” he says, glancing at the grandfather clock standing against the opposite wall. “Not for another four hours, at least.” His mother hums again.

“Even so,” she says, and kisses his cheek before turning to leave the room. She pauses with one foot on the first step of the grand staircase leading up to the second floor, and calls over her shoulder to Draco’s father. “You’ll be up soon, Lucius?”

“I’ll be right behind you, love,” he says. He still sounds amused, but his answer seems to satisfy Narcissa. Draco and his father watch as she nods and slowly ascends up the stairs before disappearing along the hall on the floor above. “Do you remember, Draco, when you were younger, and I told you to find someone who makes your hands shake?” Lucius says quietly.

“Yes,” Draco says, recalling the photo in his parents’ wedding album revealing his father’s hands trembling as his bride approached him. “You said you knew that Mother was the one because she was the only person who ever made you feel nervous.” His father nods, then gives him a small smile.

“Perhaps, given the circumstances, that advice should be amended now,” he says sagely. “Find someone who does the opposite, instead.” Draco glances down at his father’s steady hands, realizes suddenly that his mother’s hands on his face, in his own shaking hand, were still and calm. He shoves his into his pockets. His father touches his shoulder. It’s meant to be comforting, Draco knows, and it might be, one day, when his hands have stopped shaking and he can look back on this with a certain degree of wisdom. Right now, though, it stabs at him, another tiny abandonment. 

“I’m glad you’re home,” he says in a low voice. “I think this house misses you when you’re gone.”

\---

Calliope knocks on Draco’s door while he’s finishing his morning’s first cup of tea. He opens it to see her smiling widely, holding out a small cake. “Happy birthday!” she says. “I know you’re going to your parents’ place tonight, and you’ll be at work all day, so I won’t be seeing you later, but I wanted your day to start a bit sweet. It’s dark chocolate you like, right?” Draco gladly invites her inside and makes her a cup of tea and they share a little slice of rich cake before he goes to work. It’s already a better birthday than last year’s.

George doesn’t acknowledge Draco’s birthday at all throughout the day, which is fine. It is. It’s fine. Draco is almost certain he told George that today was his birthday the night before last when they were drunkenly wandering the Manor, but it’s entirely possible his memory is faulty. There was a lot of talking that night, after all. George probably forgot. That’s fine. 

At the Manor that evening, Draco is rather thrilled to find that his mother and father have invited Blaise and Pansy to his birthday dinner, and it’s almost like it used to be. The five of them enjoy beef bourguignon and catch up with one another, Pansy and Blaise welcome here, treated as they always have been, like they’re Malfoys themselves. Blaise speaks of the odd apprenticeship involved with becoming an Unspeakable, how he has six more months to choose which specific room he wants to work in, that no one has given him any trouble about testifying for Draco since January. Pansy discusses the tediousness of taking her N.E.W.T.s, how difficult it’s been finding a job, the freeing relief of moving out of her family’s estate. After dinner, the Malfoys give Pansy and Blaise a tour so they can see the newly redone rooms. Pansy loves the new paint in the first floor drawing room; Blaise admires the new furniture arrangement in Lucius’ office. They have pudding and tea in the parlor on the second floor, and Draco opens his gifts: a handsome leather-bound journal from Pansy (“It’s hippogriff leather,” she says with a wry smile, “which I thought you’d appreciate”), an elegant little wooden box containing a shoe polishing kit from Blaise (“You used to be obsessive about that,” he says, taking a sip of tea, “I saw your boots at the memorial and figured you should get back into the habit. No offense, of course”), and a few pairs of cufflinks from his parents (“We knew you’d like the onyx stud and the square engraved ones,” his mother says, and his father cuts in with, “But the monogrammed snakes were a bit of a risk.”) Draco walks around the grounds with Blaise and Pansy before the night ends, spying on the temperamental peacocks, saying things they can’t say in front of Draco’s parents. Draco almost tells them about his missing magic, but instead he simply stands at the gate and bids them a good night, watches them walk a few steps and Disapparate, one by one.

Draco goes to work the next day and George presents him with a gift. He stares at it for several long moments, taking in the small crooked bow affixed to the corner of the cover of _The Restored Tales of Beedle the Bard_. “Now Including Stories Censored By Pureblood Fanatics!” boasts the sale sticker over the editor’s name. Draco looks up at George.

“You said your dad wouldn’t let you read some of them, right?” George says. “The Muggle-friendly ones? This is a complete collection.” He thumbs through the first few pages. “There’s even an introduction in here about the ethics of that type of censorship, or whatever - I don’t know, I only skimmed those pages enough to know you’d love all that academic rot tucked in there with the stories.” 

“My birthday was yesterday,” Draco says, feeling vaguely distressed. George hesitates, then rolls his eyes.

“It’s not a birthday gift,” George says, in a tone that clearly means he thinks Draco is an idiot, “because it’s the _sixth_ of June.” Draco stares, narrows his eyes, and suddenly the realization hits him.

“Oh,” he says. So...George _did_ remember. And he held off on an acknowledgement until the calendar turned because that’s what Draco did for George just two months ago, which George assumed _he_ would remember. Because they...have a thing, the two of them. An inside thing. Because they’re friends. And George thinks they’re friends, too.

“Oh my god,” George says, a smile dawning on his face. “You thought I forgot! You _actually_ thought I forgot your birthday. How could I have? You rambled about it for at least ten minutes the other night, for the whole east wing of the second floor. I’ve got the date lodged in my brain for the rest of my life, probably.”

“I did not _ramble_ ,” Draco says defensively, because George is right and he hates it. George laughs.

“By all means, believe what you want,” he says, glancing toward the shop entrance as a young family walks in. He waves and begins to approach them, turns back long enough to say, “Happy sixth of June, Malfoy.”

\---

“So where do you go right after work?” George asks him. 

“Where do _you_ go right after work, Weasley?” Draco snaps. He just finished dealing with a particularly irritating customer. He’s not exactly in the mood for George’s odd nosiness.

“I assume you go home,” George continues, like Draco hasn’t said a thing at all. He does that sometimes, Draco’s noticed, when Draco gets snippy or rude, just barrels onward trusting that the conversation will get all the wrinkles out eventually. It always does. Draco can’t stand to be ignored for too long, forces himself to regain some control of his attitude and not be such a complete knob, for at least as long as it takes to reach the end of their discussion, and by then he’s usually in a genuinely better mood anyway so...it works out.

“Sure,” Draco says, sarcastic, determined this time to hold on to his stubbornness for as long as possible. 

“But where is home?” George says. Draco snorts.

“What a philosophical conundrum you find yourself in,” he says dryly. “Indeed, Weasley, where _is_ home? For any of us? Are we not all, at our core, merely temporarily tamed beasts trained to misuse and abuse our interim earthen abode?”

“You are absolutely mental,” George says, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Where do you _live_ , Malfoy?” Draco sighs.

“Midlands,” he says. 

“Really?” George seems surprised. “I figured you for further south. Don’t you want to be among your own tax bracket of independently wealthy snobs?”

“Yes, well,” Draco says, rolling his eyes, “I didn’t really have a choice of location, you see, because I inherited the house.”

“From who?” George says. Draco hesitates.

“From Snape,” he says finally, not looking at George. “He was my godfather, and practically my uncle, so. He died and he left me his house, along with, you know, everything else.” He bites his lip. The atmosphere around has grown just a bit tense, too heavy. He needs to throw a mood-lifter out there. “Including enough Lily Potter memorabilia to fill up an entire box, which is disturbing. I should probably give it to Potter, but, well, then I’d have to talk to him, and who wants to do that? Frankly, I’m amazed your sister can stand to be around such an empty-headed bore, especially when she is, among other and certainly less desirable things, at least marginally clever and adequately frightening.”

“And his house - your house - it’s in the Midlands, then?” George says. Draco sighs again. 

“Yes,” he answers, “in a sad little town called Cokeworth. Full of Muggles. Old ones. Dead ones, too, probably. Except my next door neighbor.”

“You lucked out with one of ours for a neighbor?” 

“What? Oh, no, I mean, she’s still a Muggle, but she’s young. It’s just as well, actually, since it’s not like I can do magic at the moment. She’s helped me out around the house and all, but she’s somewhat of a terror in other ways. We’re probably right to be wary of Muggles, you know,” Draco says, in a thoughtful tone. “She’s got me doing things like using a launderette and running for sport and watching film musicals at her house with her. Do you know about video cassette recorders? I knew about cinemas, of course, but somehow they’ve fit films into these little black cases for home viewing. The things they’ve come up with to entertain themselves...it’s quite impressive, really. Why are you looking at me like that?”

George blinks, his mouth agape. He shakes his head suddenly at Draco’s question, snaps his mouth shut, then opens it again to say, “You--you go running?”

“Jesus, you’re slow today,” Draco mutters. “ _Yes_ , Weasley, I go running. Every day after work. With my neighbor Calliope. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Look, do you want to come over or something? Your constant barrage of questions is giving me hives. I swear, I’m itching already.”

“My god, you’re an annoying little wretch,” George says, rolling his eyes, but then, “Sure. I’ll come over. I’ll...go running. With you and your neighbor Calliope.” Draco narrows his eyes. 

“ _Do_ try to be less of this sad sack of social incapacitation when you meet her,” he says. “You’re an embarrassment, honestly.”

And so Draco finds himself tying his trainers as George and Calliope shake hands later, asking George for the third time if he’s _sure_ he doesn’t want to bring a bottle of water along, and listening skeptically to George’s promises that he can keep up. He ends up sprinting ahead, as he often does, and it’s often never a problem, because Calliope can match his speed easily, or catch up, at least, when she doesn’t feel like dashing along with him. George, however, cannot really do either.

He pauses at the north corner of the park, jogging in place, waiting for the socially acceptable indication that he can begin running again, but when Calliope meets him, she says, “Your friend is a bit of an idiot, isn’t he? Or did he sincerely think he could keep up?” Draco looks back to see George, a block or two behind them, hopping along pathetically and clutching at his side. He rolls his eyes.

“I knew he was full of shit,” he says, and waves her along. “You go on ahead, Calliope. I’ll drag him along if I have to. I owe him that anyway.” He runs back to George, who is bent over now, gasping for air.

“‘Oh no, I don’t need any special treatment,’” Draco says in what he believes to be a spot on impersonation of George’s voice and, in fact, a word for word repeat of what George insisted just fifteen minutes ago. He hopes it’s sufficiently mocking. “‘Come on, Malfoy, you know I can keep up, we’ve, er, played against each other before, you know, at school.’”

“You are,” George takes a big gasping breath, “the most--irritating--” he coughs, “person in--the entire world--did you know that?”

“Hmm,” Draco says. “To whom do I register my doubts? I was in Potter’s year, you see, and as such, I believe there are other contenders far more worthy of the title than myself.” George looks up just enough so that Draco can see him roll his eyes, which makes Draco laugh. “Honestly, Weasley, I thought you were in better shape than this.”

“Excuse you, I’m in perfectly fine shape, _thanks_ ,” George says loudly, pulling himself to his full height. He’s still breathing heavily, and is very sweaty, and now his shirt is all wet and sticking to his chest. Draco frowns, and grows so focused on how truly unbecoming the whole sight is that he nearly misses it when George gestures broadly at Draco’s figure and says, “I’m just not molded for this type of exercise, you prat. Have some mercy, Malfoy. Not everybody can have a lean, lithe Seeker’s body like yours.” 

Draco catches George’s eyes widening for the briefest fraction of a second before George doubles over again, coughing and gasping, hands on his knees. Draco very suddenly feels off balance. _Lithe_. Christ. But he can’t linger on the word, not now, not here in front of the goddamn park that hasn’t seen a child in at least twenty years. He swallows. He licks his lips. He opens his mouth. 

George cuts him off, says, “See? I’m not meant for extended cardio. There’s a reason I was a good Beater - I’m mostly muscle, you know.” Draco knows. With George’s head bowed still, Draco can see where his damp shirt sticks to his back. _Totally unseemly_ , Draco thinks. 

“I know,” he says. He turns away before George can look up. “Can you at least walk back? As you are, indeed, mostly muscle, I doubt my graceful limbs will be able to drag you all the way to my house, not that you don’t deserve it.” 

They do walk back, and then George says, “Merlin, I need a shower,” and Draco, for some reason, says, “Use mine, I don’t want you stinking up the whole house,” and Draco stands in the living room, just beyond the staircase that leads to the second floor where George is taking a shower, listens to the water run through the pipes up to the bathroom, holds his mouth in a tense little square of confusion, thinks so much his eye begins to twitch.

 _Lithe_. That’s what George called him, called his body. It's not the word itself - it’s naught but an innocent word, after all, and has had no say in how its speakers have come to use it over the centuries - but there are _connotations_. Ones of which George cannot possibly be ignorant, and certainly isn't, if the widening of his eyes after he said it was anything to judge by. People only use that word in a sensual way, when they're describing someone they want to touch, to make theirs, or else someone they’ve already touched, already claimed, and are now looking at in a daze, licking their lips, wanting.

It was the word that featured in all those awkward gay erotica anthologies he smuggled out of the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library when he was 13 and trying to figure out why all of his wanking fantasies started with Pansy, like they were supposed to, but ended with Blaise. It appeared on those pages alongside other words like _pliant_ and _writhing_. It was the word that Blaise muttered against his neck when he was 15 and skinny and insecure about it, after he had figured out the fantasies and progressed on to trying it out, fumbling through it with his gorgeous best friend. It was murmured from Blaise’s lips down his chest with other words like _impossible_ and _beautiful_. 

George called him _lithe_ and now George is taking a shower in his home. In _his_ shower. Fuck. George called him _lithe_ and now George is _in his shower_. George will know, now, what kind of shampoo Draco likes, his preferred scent of body wash, that he uses an exfoliating scrub. Christ. George is washing his hair with Draco’s shampoo _right now_ , or perhaps lathering his broad chest with Draco’s body wash _right now_. George called him _lithe_ and now George is _in his shower_ and now Draco is _thinking about George in his shower_ \--

“Sweet Merlin, get a _fucking_ grip, man,” Draco says to himself, pressing the heels of his hands on his eyes before going into the kitchen to splash cold water on his face. 

\---

George starts coming over to Spinner’s End a few days a week. Not immediately after work, like the first time - he doesn’t go on a run with Draco and Calliope again, which is just as well for him as it is for Draco, who can run in peace as usual, not having to keep looping back to check on George’s well-being, or see the way George’s shirt clings to his arms, or think about the fact that George will need to shower when they get back to the house. Instead, George arrives by Floo right about when Draco is walking downstairs, fresh from his own shower and very much not looking at George, and then they just. Hang out.

Sometimes, George pretends to help with housework and actually just menaces Draco’s increasingly elaborate book sorting system, picks through the box of Lily Potter ephemera and gives a hearty “Yikes” after examining each photo or letter or obituary, and generally behaves like a nuisance. Sometimes, George truly does help with housework, going room to room with Draco and pointing his wand at things that need simple fixing or cleaning the magical way while Draco crosses them off a list. Sometimes, George and Draco go next door to Calliope’s house and watch a film on her television and readily agree with her about how terribly sheltered their upbringings were and act like they have any clue what a Disney is or are even remotely familiar with the texture of a Crunchie bar. Sometimes, George will just sit in the new armchair beside the lamp, draw up little plans for future products or talk quietly about Fred, and Draco will stretch out on the sofa holding a book above his face in one hand and playing catch-and-release with a Snitch in the other, and inevitably Draco will put the book down, twist around so George can see his face when he says that George is impressively ambitious or perfectly normal for still having days where he swears he’s drowning or honestly funny on a very rare basis, because he needs George to know that he means it. 

It’s really rather nice.

It’s so nice that Draco feels instantly, oddly disappointed when he detects a swooping sensation in his stomach at the sight of George’s smile of pure delight when Draco shows him the volcano experiment with the Muggle chemistry set. The feeling must show on his face, because George’s smile falters when he looks back up at Draco, and when George asks what’s wrong, Draco shoves aside his confusion at the strangeness of it all and says, “Nothing. Want me to show you how to make a fizzy drink?” because he wants to see George smile at him like that again.

He revisits it later, long after George goes home, when he’s lying in bed, staring through the darkness up to the ceiling. Disappointment. Why, though? And the weird stomach swooping...well, alright. He knows enough of feelings to know what that usually indicates, even if he’s never truly felt it before, but that doesn’t mean it has to be telltale for him. It’s probably just...well, it’s...George is the first friend he’s ever made in the Wizarding world independently of...everything, isn’t he? They didn’t grow up together, or take classes together, or play on a team together, or even so much as fight on the same side of the war together. Hell, it’s only been a couple months since they stopped hating each other, right? But they’re friends. Against all odds, really, but they managed it, somehow. And friends are supposed to be happy when their friends are happy, and that’s probably why his stomach did that thing when George smiled like that. That’s all. 

So the disappointment...Hmm. It takes him awhile to parse that. He falls asleep with it, wakes up to see it hanging above him still, mulls it over as he cooks and eats breakfast, and finally finds an answer at the bottom of his cup of tea. He spent the overwhelming majority of his life firmly believing that the Weasleys were all blood traitors, that he was superior because he remained loyal to the purity of his blood, that a Weasley wasn't even good enough to touch him, is the thing. And it's different now, dramatically so, and in some ways, occasionally, that nasty voice rises up within him, despite how wrong he now understands it to be, and it feels things for him, temporarily. It’s what made him sneer at the idea of running for fun at first, after all, and it’s what pushed forward disappointment at the reality of making a Weasley happy. It’s just residual hatred resurfacing, reminding him of who he used to be, and inviting him to return to that if he wants. He doesn’t.

That’s all.

Meriweather instructs him to make a list of the things he likes. Things that make him happy, bring him peace, give him a warm feeling, cause him to smile. She says that she thinks he’s been doing a little better, day by day, and she wants him to be able to see what she sees. She says that writing this list will give him some clarity, help him narrow down what he should avoid and what he should be willing to ask for more of, make it easier for him to get a goal or two in mind for his future, now that it isn’t so foggy and dark. She tells him to sit by himself in the quiet and let his mind wander, to get out the more obvious things and then let the little ones make their way onto the page, to not be afraid to write down anything, no matter how outlandish it may seem. 

So he sits in the new armchair beside the lamp with a quill, whose fresh bottle of ink is on the small table next to the chair, and a scroll of parchment, its intimidating blankness starting up at him. He swallows. He closes his eyes. He takes two minutes’ worth of deep breaths. He opens his eyes. He begins to write.

Working with his hands. Reading. Solving complex problems, including himself. Cooking. Potions. Running. Spinner’s End. Cokeworth. Routine. Calliope. The smell of washing powder in the launderette. The way the sun sets behind the old mill. Making his parents happy. Finding where he belongs. His mother’s voice. His father’s laugh. George’s smile. George’s eye roll. George’s hands. George’s vulnerability. George’s honesty. George’s trust. George. George. George. George.

The quill snaps suddenly in his fingers, pulls him from his reverie. He blinks rapidly, shakes his head, lifts the parchment up closer to the light. He reads it, and then he reads it again, and then he reads it again, and again, and again.

“Shit,” Draco whispers. 

\---

On a hot Sunday in late June, Draco discovers that his house has a back garden.

“What the fuck?” he says, as he rips down the curtains that he only moments ago realized were curtains and not, in fact, more ugly wallpaper, and learns that the entire living room wall opposite the front door is a series of floor-to-ceiling glass panels with a single glass door in the middle that leads to the mess of a chaotic, overgrown garden. 

“Holy….” George trails off, appearing next to Draco. He takes his eyes off the garden to glance around at the windowed wall itself. “This is the nicest thing in this place. Why would Snape hide it like that?”

“Because it’s the nicest thing in this place,” Draco says dryly. “I can’t believe this. How many times was I over here, spending entire days inside these dreary walls, and a perfectly absurd garden was outside the whole time?” 

“It’s just like a greenhouse. See?” George says, pointing, and Draco notices that the garden is entirely enclosed with more glass panels, precisely like the greenhouses at Hogwarts. “Must be why they’ve continued to grow without attention for - what’s it been? Just shy of two years now, at least.”

“They’re all wild,” Draco says in awe, staring out at the flowering hellebores and bloodroots, leafy dittanies and niffler’s fancies, tall yellow goosegrass. In a corner farthest from the house grows the strong slithering green vines of a Venomous Tentacula, and opposite it, as if facing off in battle, a Devil’s Snare shivers in the shadows. He feels a bit bad for it. It’s got no chance in a greenhouse, especially one that houses a Venomous Tentacula. He’s surprised it’s even lasted this long. 

“Wait!” George says, his hand grasping around Draco’s wrist. Draco looks down and is somewhat surprised to see his trembling fingertips pressed on the door, readying to push it open. He looks over at George, pulls his arm out of George’s grasp. “It’s not safe to just go out there, Malfoy.”

“I know, Weasley,” Draco says indignantly, dutifully ignoring the fluttering in his stomach. “How do we deal with it, then? It can’t just be left like this. That Devil’s Snare will be destroyed soon, for one thing.”

“My god, are you feeling sorry for a _murderous plant_?” George asks, crouching down and narrowing his eyes at the Venomous Tentacula, whose vines have begun a strange little wiggling dance. 

“It’s not necessarily murderous!” Draco says defensively. “Not if you know what you’re doing. And anyway, _you’re_ probably about to try to convince me to keep that Tentacula so you can have cheaper access to the seeds. Well, I have news for you: they’re still a Class C Non-Tradable Substance and as such, I will still demand a gorgeous Galleon for them, and on the condition that you keep my name entirely off the books.” 

“So I _could_ convince you, though?” George asks as a few vines creep toward the house through the air. The Devil’s Snare shrinks back further, quivering. _I know the feeling_ , Draco thinks, giving it a sympathetic glance. 

“It would take work,” Draco says. “I shall start by requiring a rent fee, I believe, as I would essentially be allowing you to rent that space in my garden. But all this talk is futile if we can’t even get outside to tend to it, and everything else. That snakeweed is in desperate need of--” A large Tentacula seed pod thumps hard against the glass right in front of George’s face, and Draco instinctively grabs George’s shoulder, gripping tight and steadying George, who jerked backward at the impact. Draco’s hand lingers perhaps a bit too long; he wrenches it back as George glances at it, eyes wide, and then up at Draco. Draco doesn’t look back.

“Right,” George says, standing up again and gazing out at the garden. “I know a bloke. Herbologist. Best in the business. I’ll owl him, arrange for him to make a house call.”

“You think your bloke will be able to handle all that?” Draco asks, gesturing at the disorder outside. “It’s a small warzone.” The corner of George’s mouth quirks up. 

“He’ll be fine,” George says. “He’s handled bigger warzones.”

Two days later, Neville Longbottom shows up at Spinner’s End. Draco nearly slams the door on him and his obnoxiously handsome features and his dopey, surprised grin, but George intervenes, pulls Longbottom in for whatever sad show of masculinity that Gryffindors apparently consider a friendly embrace, and says, “I think you’ll have some fun with this one, mate,” as he leads Longbottom directly back to the glass wall.

“‘ _He’s handled bigger warzones_ ’?!” Draco mutters at George under his breath a few minutes later, from safely inside the house, as Longbottom swipes his wand methodically along the goosegrass, gently mowing it down to a reasonable height so that he can walk further into the garden. George looks infuriatingly smug.

“You can’t deny that, can you?” he asks. “Hogwarts was much larger, after all.” Draco crosses his arms, purses his lips, and makes a grumpy sort of sound. George laughs. Out in the garden, Longbottom looks up at them, his bronze skin glistening. 

“So are you two, like, friends, then, or something?” he says. 

“Associates,” George says, with a tone like such an unseemly confession pains him. Draco waits until Longbottom gets distracted by a nosy little flower nudging eagerly at his boot before casting a sideways glance at George, who shrugs and smiles at him. “Figured you don’t want him to know we’re friends, either,” he says. Draco looks down at his feet, gives his own little shrug, a tiny smile. George told Longbottom, when he first arrived, that this was George’s house, that Draco would be managing the property for him, and then when Draco raised his eyebrows over it, whispered that he didn’t think Draco would want Longbottom to know where he lived. So this is a bit like a game, where Draco yet again has to bite his tongue around George, but in this version, George protects him, shields his pride. It makes a little bulb of warmth blossom in his chest like a flower blooming. It just...hurts, though, too.

It takes the better part of two hours, but Longbottom does manage to prune and tame and beat back every plant in the garden, even the Venomous Tentacula, with relative ease and great enjoyment. (“He’s mad, isn’t he?” Draco asked George as they watched Longbottom fight off the Tentacula with obvious delight on his face. George nodded pleasantly, said, “Oh yes, but who among us doesn’t find happiness in things everyone else finds dreadful?” Draco thought he noticed a deep shade of pink tinging George’s cheeks then, but it was probably just the light of the setting sun.) Afterward, Longbottom says, “It's all sorted, and you can do the basics of watering and all that on your own, but I really should come by once every two or three weeks or so, just for maintenance’s sake. I’ll give you a deal on my going rate, George.”

“It's Malfoy you’ll be seeing, more likely,” George says.

“Oh,” says Longbottom. He looks at Draco, narrows his eyes. “Hmm. Three times the normal rate then.”

“ _Three times_?” Draco snaps.

“Consider it restitution,” Longbottom says happily. Draco scowls as he produces a bag of coins from his pocket, George laughing all the while. It's a good sound.

\---

Draco saunters into Flourish and Blotts on his lunch break on the first of July and meanders through the shelves. He’s been surrounded by piles and piles of ancient tomes for so long that he’s nearly forgotten what new books look and smell like. He's just abandoned the fiction section - too many romance novels about young women getting seduced by werewolves and vampires and centaurs for his comfort - when his eyes catch on the friendly wooden spine of a thick book that clearly doesn't belong where it is, wedged between the third and fourth volumes of a pentalogy on goblin rebellions. He pulls the book out gingerly and reads the title on the cover: _The Complexity and Mystery of Wands: As Comprehensive an Understanding of the Subtle Laws of Wands As Can Be, All Things Considered._

He opens the book and flips through it, running his fingers along the smooth pages in quiet contemplation. This isn’t the first time he’s thought that a deeper knowledge and understanding of wandlore might help him with his lost magic, but it is the first time he’s had to confront the fact that he’s afraid of it. And it’s not even only because of the obvious _what if it doesn’t work, what if he discovers that no wand will ever choose him again, what if he has to live as a Muggle forever_ of it all. It’s the other thing, too. 

Potter said that Draco was once the master of the Elder Wand. For almost a whole year, he was. And he never even knew it. He had the power and control of a legendary, unbeatable wand, and he never knew it, and now everyone knows it, and he still doesn’t really know what it meant, or what it means, now. He was the master of the Elder Wand for months and months and now he has no magic at all. 

There’s so much that nobody knows about wands and how they work, is the thing that’s truly wondrous to Draco. Not even Ollivander, whose entire ancestry is wrapped up in wandlore, in solving and crafting and streamlining and mastering. Draco knew nothing, still knows nothing, really, about it, and he wants to, has wanted to, if he’s honest, since Potter yelled out in front of everyone in the Great Hall that the Dark Lord had killed the wrong person if he wanted to become master of the Elder Wand, mere hours before Draco felt the magic drip drop out of him, through the fingers of his shaking wand hand. And Draco can’t help thinking that this is the answer, that maybe it’s not meant to be so easy as finding another wand that will choose him and give him back his magic, that, maybe...maybe he has to earn it.

He buys the book, reads through the whole thing in three days. It’s well written and fascinating but it leaves him feeling dissatisfied, just as the author warned him it would in the introduction and again in the conclusion. “The nature of wands - their crafting, their laws, their meanings, their allegiances, and so on and so forth - is itself a mystery that has yet to be and perhaps never can be solved, and as such, no book, however detailed and thorough, can ever hope to satisfy those who are most insatiably interested,” is what Eunice Wereboch wrote, and Draco can’t think of anything to do except read the book again. He goes more slowly this time, lies on his front on the living room floor and takes notes like he’s in school again. George stretches out on the sofa, closer to Draco than his usual armchair - a move into which Draco does not read _at all_ , at least not until George goes home - and teases him about it, tries to distract him, says, “You’re just like Hermione, I can’t believe it,” says, “I could just tip over your ink bottle right now, you know,” says, “Do you think this will help?”

“Bite your tongue, scoundrel, I am _nothing_ like Granger,” Draco snaps, rather violently turning the page.

“You’d be a nuisance as always, you know,” Draco sighs, moving his ink bottle slightly closer to George, a dare which George has yet to take.

“I don’t know,” Draco says quietly, looking up at George. “I think I have to hope it will.”

He spends an afternoon at the Manor with Blaise and Pansy, sneakily corralling them into the library when the rain washes out their broom racing plans so he can find every book his family has about wands. Pansy and Blaise aren’t idiots, though - it’s not like when he told Crabbe and Goyle to stand guard at either end of the Restricted Section shelves while he shoved gay erotica anthologies into his schoolbag and afterward they asked what kind of poison recipe he stole even though the potions books were two shelves over. Blaise and Pansy notice, raise their perfect eyebrows, ask questions. Draco bites his lip and tells them, finally, that he’s lost his magic, that he’s trying to get it back. They look shocked, fearful, worried about him. 

“Your magic is gone and you’ve been working for a _Weasley_ this whole time?” Pansy screeches. “Draco, that’s not _safe_! He could attack you at any moment and you couldn’t defend yourself--”

“I think the more pressing issue is that Draco works in Diagon Alley at all,” Blaise says. He sounds calm, but Draco can detect the slightest waverings in his tone, the tension in his jaw. “Which is so close to Knockturn. You’re an enemy on both sides, Draco, _anyone_ could attack you there. Surely you’ve thought of that.”

“I’m not an imbecile, Blaise, of course I’ve thought of it,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. “But nothing’s happened so far” - he pushes aside the memory of the woman in Madam Primpernelle’s, the unsafe prickling that experience left at the back of his neck for weeks afterward - “and that’s not the point anyway. The _point_ is that I’m trying to get it back so that none of this will be an issue anymore.”

“Right,” says Pansy after a quiet moment, her shoulders dropping as she sighs. She glances around the library shelves, at Draco and the two books in his hands, at Blaise, who purses his lips at her. She sighs again, shrugs, looks back at Draco. “Well, how can we help?”

\---

“Sooooo,” George says one morning at the shop, then pauses, making all sorts of odd shapes with his mouth, for long enough so that Draco thinks he’s just being weird and should be ignored. As soon as Draco looks away, though, George blurts out, “Your parents invited me over for lunch this Saturday,” and Draco whips his head up so quickly that he swears it pulls a muscle. 

“They _what_?!” he says. He’s grateful, at least, that George looks as shocked as he feels. George pulls an envelope from his pocket and shoves it at Draco, who nearly crushes it in his haste to grab it. Sure enough, there are the words, “George Weasley, The Flat Above the Joke Shop, Diagon Alley,” written in his mother’s unmistakable elegant script. Certain this must be a joint hallucination, Draco tears out the parchment inside the envelope and reads the letter.

_Dear George Weasley,_

_Despite our initial reservations, our son’s employment at your business has proved to be an invaluable resource for his recovery since the war. We would like to express our gratitude by inviting you to lunch at the Malfoy Manor this Saturday, the 24th of July, at 12:00pm. We look forward to hosting you._

Below the message is the address of Draco’s childhood home, followed by the signatures of both his mother and his father. He squints hard at his father's name, holds the parchment mere centimeters from his face, scrutinizing it for signs of forgery. Nothing.

“Oh my god,” Draco says, dropping one hand to his side and pressing the heel of the other to his forehead. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

“I agree,” George says, eyes wide, nodding adamantly. Draco groans.

“This is all Meriweather’s fault. ‘ _Our son’s recovery_ ’ - fuck’s sake!” Draco hisses.

“Who's Meriweather?” George asks. Draco groans again.

“She’s our therapist,” Draco says. “Well, she was my therapist first, and then my parents started with her--separately--from me, not from each other-- _anyway_ ,” Draco scowls at George as if he is to blame for Draco's rambling, “she must’ve given them homework. _This_ homework.” Draco grabs hold of his hair own hair, curls his hand into a fist. “ _Christ!_ ”

“Okay,” George says slowly, “okay. Stop that, first of all.” He pulls at Draco’s arm until Draco lets go of his hair. “You’re going to go bald if you keep on with that. Surely your--Meriweather--surely she told you that’s not a good coping mechanism.” George’s hand is still on his arm. Draco frowns at him. George drops his hand. “Anyway,” he says, “second of all, you can calm down. I’ll go. Of course I’ll go. And we can pretend I’ve never been there before. And it--it won’t be weird.” Draco narrows his eyes.

“Is that how you Gryffindors talk yourselves up?” he says incredulously. “All this time, I was sure it was something more tough and stereotypically masculine, but I suppose I was putting too much faith in you. Typical.” George scoffs and rolls his eyes, turns away muttering in annoyance. Draco laughs. Now they’re back on solid ground. 

On Saturday, George arrives wearing his most garish dragon skin waistcoat, which makes Draco roll his eyes so viciously behind his father that George actually chokes on a laugh as he shakes hands with Lucius and barely manages to disguise it as a cough. He brings a gift - not wine or mead, Draco is thankful to see, which means George must have actually been listening three days ago when Draco quietly mentioned that this month of therapy seems to have been especially difficult on his father and that Draco was worried that Lucius would see the lunch with George as a good excuse to drink past his usual firmly self-imposed limits. But this gift is small and wrapped in a little yellow box and--

“It’s a prototype, actually,” George says, as Draco’s mother takes it from him, looking surprised, “of the first of a new line I’m working on. Draco’s told me that you--” Draco’s eyebrows shoot upward. He can feel them disappear under his meager fringe. George has never called him Draco before. Draco’s eyes go to George’s face but George lifts his arm in a flash, rubs at the back of his neck, holds his elbow at an angle that hides his face from Draco’s sight. _Huh._

“He’s said you both like to tinker,” George continues awkwardly. “This, uh, it isn’t so much as a joke product as it is just--I’ve been working with emotional magic, experimenting with attaching it to objects, and what the limits are and all.” George finally drops his arm to his side. “Dra--your son has mentioned that this is a bit of an interest of yours,” he says, glancing at Draco as he does, pretending this time, Draco assumes, that he didn’t almost say call Draco by his first name again, “so I thought you might like to see it. But, obviously, it’s probably better for after lunch.” 

George looks _hilariously_ uncomfortable. He wasn’t like this at _all_ when he was here the first time, Draco realizes, and Draco wasn’t really expecting his parents to make George this nervous. It’s starting to make Draco feel anxious, to be honest.

“A tour, then?” he asks. His mother and father and George all look at him with wide eyes. He shrugs. “Lunch should be finished in ten minutes. You can just take it out of the oven. That should be enough time for me to give Weasley a perfunctory tour of the Manor, don’t you think, Father? We can meet you both out in the garden to eat.” 

“Yes,” Draco’s mother says, resting her hand on Lucius’ arm and pushing the box into his hand. “That’s a good plan, Draco. We’ll meet you outside.”

“Weasley,” Draco says, jerking his head and turning on his heel to walk out of the foyer, trusting that George will follow him. He does.

“So,” George says, sounding rather amused, “a _perfunctory_ tour, then?”

“So,” Draco says, dry as he can manage, “‘Draco,’ am I now?” George can’t hide his face now, at least not before Draco gets to see him turn a deep crimson. It clashes awfully with his yellow-green jacket and it makes Draco’s legs feel a bit like jelly as he walks up the stairs.

“Yes, well,” George says defensively, clearing his throat, “that _is_ your name, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Draco says, unable to shake the delight in his voice even if he wanted to, “but so is Malfoy, which is what you have, up until approximately two minutes ago, always called me.”

“Yes, well,” George says again, looking grumpy, his face still quite pink, “I can return to that exclusively, if you like.”

“No,” Draco says, too quickly, too softly. He has to look away before George can see any color rise to his own face. He clears his own throat, calls up his previous voice of grandeur. “If you insist on preserving your pride, then I will grant you the favor of calling you by _your_ first name, but only to save you from further embarrassment so harsh that you risk simply wilting like that tormentil bush in my garden until you just disappear back into the earth.”

“Merlin, you are dramatic,” George mutters, and then, louder, “How can I ever thank you, _Draco_ \--” he says it through his teeth, and Draco has to bite back a chuckle, “--for an offer of such magnanimity? 

“Do you know,” Draco says with a charming smile, “I think spending time with me has improved your vocabulary immensely, George.” His smile falters as soon as he says George’s name, burning like a cold wind through his throat, and he can feel his face heat up again as George looks over at him. Maybe _he’ll_ wilt like that tormentil bush until he disappears back into the earth. But after a moment, George simply jabs back with a snappy retort, and life continues, somehow, and Draco feels as though it’s always been exactly like this.

They complete a small loop around the house and end up out in the garden, where Draco’s parents are just sitting down. The sun is out, miraculously, but it’s muggy, and George has to ditch the waistcoat almost immediately after sitting down, and now there’s nothing to distract from George’s rather thin shirt, and Draco has to take great care to not openly stare at the the skin of George’s freckled chest visible above the low collar. George likes the beef Wellington that Draco cooked, and he talks with Draco's parents like there's no deep and horrible chasm between them whatsoever, and Draco's father barely touches his glass of wine because he's too busy enjoying the conversation. Afterward, when the table is cleared, Draco's mother and father examine the tiny music box that George has brought, ask him questions about its intended purpose, give him suggestions for improving it, say, “I used to have something like this, but it was technically cursed, a family heirloom, not exactly like what you’re aiming for here,” and, “This really is very clever magic,” and, “You’ll stop by and show us the final product, won't you?” 

Draco feels a bit dizzy, sitting there among it all. Watching George lean toward his parents to explain a point, his father reaching into his pocket for his glasses so he can get a better look at the visible traces of magic on the hinges, his mother giving George just as much attention as she gives the books she spends every evening reading, Draco is reminded of the way George flopped down on the settee in Draco's bedroom, the first time George was here. George looked like he belonged there, then, among Draco's things, where Draco used to sleep, while Draco took off his shirt. George looks up at him now, sneaks him a smile, and Draco returns it involuntarily, despite the ache it gives him in his chest, deep and sharp like a hunger pang.

Draco walks George out to the gate later, and George says, “Oi, July's almost over. Have you gone to see Ollivander yet?”

“Not yet,” Draco says, looking down at his feet, wishing for the dozenth time that he’d never made George promise to physically shove him into Ollivander’s shop on the first Monday of August if he didn't go see him on his own in July. 

“Draco,” George says gently. Draco raises his head to look at him, appreciates the sympathy he sees in George's blue eyes. “Come on, mate,” George says, “don't make me drag you in the old man’s place of business. I’ll go with you, if it's easier.”

“No,” Draco says, “I’ll do it. I have to--it feels like I need to do it myself.” George nods.

“Well, then,” he says, glancing behind Draco to the house and back to meet Draco's eyes, “I’ll see you Monday.”

Draco watches George walk halfway down the street before Disapparating. He sighs and leans against the gate. This would have been so much easier if George hadn't proved how well he can fit into every part of Draco's life.

\---

By Wednesday, Draco still hasn't gone to see Ollivander. He's stood in front of Ollivander’s shop at least half a dozen times, trying to wrangle up the courage to open the door and walk in. Once he even put his hand on the doorknob, but then he saw movement inside the shop through the window and jerked back like the door burned him, all but ran away from the storefront. George keeps asking, and Draco keeps answering, “After lunch,” and, “After work,” and, “Tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Today, though, they're working the garden at Spinner’s End. For all Longbottom said they’d have no problem with handling the basics without him, so far it's proven to be troublesome and tiring, at best. The nearly-August heat pressing down on them through the surrounding glass only makes it worse. George is sweating through his shirt again, but so is Draco, this time, and something in him is pleased and vindicated to notice that George seems just as distracted by the sight of him as he is by George. 

Dusk is settling when they finally finish all the pruning and feeding. Draco pulls a little set of curtains around the Devil's Snare on the way back inside and turns around from locking the door to see George standing at the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of water, a bead of sweat sliding slowly down his throat. Draco swallows. Sweat. Right. He's sweating too. He needs to change his shirt.

Tunnel vision in full force, Draco doesn't think before lifting his shirt up over his head, and instantaneously regrets it when he frees himself from the damp clothing to see George's face, eyes somewhat narrowed, even in their obvious shock. Draco winces and looks down, starts heading toward the stairs so he can go to his room and get a clean shirt, which he would’ve had at hand before he took the one off if he wasn't so distracted, but George stops him abruptly with a step in his direction and an outstretched hand. 

“Draco,” he says, and Draco stands frozen in terror as George’s fingertips brush against the bare skin of his torso. The noise in his head rises to an ear-splitting cacophony. It takes several moments before he realizes that George is tracing the scars on his chest and asking, quietly, “What happened?”

“Oh,” Draco says. His mouth is dry. George’s fingertips are following the scar that crosses over his heart and he knows - he _knows_ \- that George can feel its wild pounding, an imprisoned animal thrashing against its cage. Draco swallows, tries to find a steady voice. His hands are shaking so violently. “Potter tried to kill me,” he says, “in a girls’ bathroom.” George gives him a sharp look.

“He did _what_?” 

“Yes, well,” Draco says, looking away from George’s face, taking a deep breath, “one could perhaps argue effectively that I may have deserved it, but only if they didn’t know the full story, and anyway, any person with the sense of a rock would know both better than to interrupt a man while he’s sobbing to a ghost, clearly at his lowest point, _and_ better than to just toss out spells without knowing what the hell they do, especially curses written by hand in old textbooks and have ‘ _for enemies_ ’ scribed underneath, so really, the entire situation just proves what I’ve been saying for eight years, which is that Harry Potter is dumber than a brick.” George gives a small huff of laughter and drops his hand.

“You going to tell me the whole story or not then?” George asks. Draco looks up to meet his eyes again.

“One day, maybe,” Draco says, then reaches toward George’s face with a trembling finger, touches the skin below where George’s left ear should be. “It was the same curse that took your ear off, for what it’s worth.” He sees George’s hand jerk upward, thinks for one fierce moment that George is going to take Draco’s wrist in his hand, hold it there against his jaw and neck, but instead he scratches at his own stomach, and Draco drops his hand reluctantly from George’s face. He wants. 

God, he _wants_. 

\---

Meriweather has been trying to work with Draco on his pessimistic attitude over their past few sessions. It hasn’t been going very well, and today is no different. Draco can’t stop thinking about how George didn’t come over to Spinner’s End yesterday like he normally does, and how much that George not coming over to Spinner’s End threw Draco off for the rest of the day, and how pathetic that was of Draco, and how he should just get used to it because it’s not as if he and George will ever be together, even if George does fancy him, which Draco thinks he probably does now, because after all, the Malfoys and the Weasleys have been deadlocked in a feud for like, at least two generations now, and George and Draco’s friendship is a total fluke, and they could never, ever, give in to this horrible inconvenience they’re feeling, and George must have realized that and is now going to avoid being alone with Draco as much as possible until he stops liking Draco and moves on, maybe back to Lee Jordan or something, and Draco is going to be left behind with shaking hands once again.

Not that he’s expressed any of this to Meriweather. He can’t even tell her about George, how he feels. He’s never said it out loud, only wrote it down on that list and Spello-taped it to the inside of one of the kitchen cabinets. He has a difficult enough time dealing with it inside his own anxious mind. Just imagining saying it aloud makes him feel sick. 

“Don’t you think anything could be worth the risk?” Meriweather is asking. Draco stares at his feet, thinks of the shoe polish kit in his room at Spinner’s End, remembers teaching George how to do it properly with his ugly maroon boots. He feels very cold in his lungs.

“No,” he says simply. 

“Why?” Meriweather asks. “Things can turn out well sometimes, you know.” Draco scoffs.

“That hasn’t been my experience,” he says. “It’s foolish to hope for anything other than falling flat. Good outcomes are just luck.” 

“Why do you say that?”

“Because no risk I’ve ever taken has turned out well, Meriweather,” Draco snaps. He crosses his arms over his chest, feeling every bit like a stubborn child and not caring. “I became a Death Eater and received orders that I was too weak to follow through with, even knowing it would mean the torture and death of my parents, and the only way we got out of that was because Snape convinced the Dark Lord to let it go since Dumbledore was dead anyway and wasn’t that the point. I made a last-ditch effort to thwart Potter and his stupid friends from finding all those Horcruxes or whatever the hell and Crabbe ended up dying in a heinous, traumatizing fire that almost killed me as well.” He takes a breath, wants to continue, but he just sighs and looks down again.

“You did those things alone, though,” Meriweather points out kindly. “How about if someone’s taking the risk with you? What if you’re both jumping off the proverbial cliff together?” Draco looks at her, looks out the window, looks back down at his shoes. He thinks of George, who spent his whole life jumping off cliffs and always had someone with him, who might never jump off any cliff again now that that someone is gone, and even if he did, it certainly wouldn’t be with Draco. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Draco says. “I’m not exactly someone people are clamoring to take risks with.” Meriweather gives him a small smile, shrugs.

“Doesn’t have to be ‘people,’” she says. “Just one person being completely with you can make it all much less scary.” Draco swallows. 

“I don’t doubt it,” he mutters, and if he sounds a bit wistful, well, then. It’s fine.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco is approaching the shop on Monday morning when he turns around suddenly and starts walking the other way. He’s going to be late to work, it occurs to him as he stands in front of Ollivander’s door yet again. He’s going to be late for work, but he’ll have done it all on his own, this one big terrifying thing that’s been clouding his head for weeks, and George will be proud of him, and he’ll get to feel the little fluttery sensation he gets whenever George smiles a genuine smile at him, and it will be worth it even when it’s immediately followed by the reiterated knowledge that he is pathetic and sad. Draco shakes his head, puts his hand on the doorknob, takes a deep breath, and opens the door. 

It’s the first time he’s stepped inside this shop in eight years. It seemed huge to him at eleven years old, but now he sees how tiny it is, dark and cramped. He lets the door close behind him, looks around anxiously, but Ollivander himself is nowhere to be found. He didn’t prepare for this. He worked up all that foolish courage for nothing. He’s about to turn and leave when he hears a weakened voice from the back of the shop, muffled by the impressive height of the shelves. 

“One moment! I’m not as young as I once was. It takes me some time to move,” Ollivander calls, his voice growing louder with each word. Draco feels rooted to the spot. He still has time to leave, he can still run and Ollivander would never know he was here, and he twists his arm behind his back, grabs the doorknob, steps one foot back, ready to bolt--

Ollivander appears, wiping at his glasses, from between two shelves on the right side of the shop. He blinks at Draco for a quiet moment, lifts his glasses to his eyes. “Ah,” he says, tone inscrutable. 

“Mr. Ollivander,” Draco says quietly, “I hope it’s….” He takes a breath. The hand still on the doorknob behind him is beginning to sweat. “If you want me to go, I understand, and I will, but I...I have a few questions about wandlore and I, uh, was hoping you might...spare me just a bit of your time.” This was a stupid idea. Ollivander narrows his pale eyes at Draco and Draco knows, intimately, that this was _such_ a stupid idea. Of course Ollivander wouldn’t want to speak to him. The man was held captive and tortured in Draco’s home for almost two years, for fuck’s sake. How could Draco ever think this was a good idea? 

“Right,” he says, hand slipping on the doorknob, “I’ll just--”

“Come on, then, let’s hear your questions,” Ollivander says, not unkindly. Draco’s eyes go wide. He drops his hand to his side again. 

“Oh,” he says. “Well.” He pulls some parchment from his bag and reads it, the paper shaking in his grip. “Alright, well. The wand chooses the wizard, I know that, but is that true even if--even if the wizard loses his magic, for some reason?” He looks up at Ollivander and instantly wishes he hadn't. Ollivander looks at him like Bill Weasley did, calculating and perceptive. Draco doesn't like it.

“A wizard or witch losing their magic is quite rare,” Ollivander says slowly. “As far as I know, there have only been eight cases in all of Wizarding British history.”

“But did wands ever respond to them again?” Draco asks. “Is it a wand that can bring it back?”

“Well,” Ollivander says, “no, but...perhaps yes. A wand is, of course, a vessel, a conduit, meant to channel one’s magic. A Muggle or a Squib could hold a wand in their hand and nothing would happen.” Draco’s face burns and he hopes the dim lighting in the shop is enough to hide it. Ollivander hardly looks like he’s paying particular attention to Draco anyway; there’s a distance in his eyes that Draco recognizes, that means Ollivander’s trying to unweave a tangled mess so he can see each piece perfectly. 

“Of course,” says Ollivander, sounding very far away indeed, “wands can also intuit truths about their masters. As far as recorded history knows, those eight who lost their magic traversed as much of the world as they could attempting to find a wand that would work for them, and when they could not, eventually joined Muggle society full-time, finding it too painful and dangerous to live among wizards and witches without possessing magic themselves. It is possible, however, that each wand they tried sensed that its holder should not wield the power that comes with a wand, and simply refused to act for them.” Draco nods slowly, taking the pieces Ollivander has unraveled and fitting them into something new for himself.

“So,” he says, and Ollivander seems slightly startled to see Draco still in the room, “if someone who’s lost their magic were to, in some way, prove themselves worthy of possessing it again, do you think a wand would be the key?” Ollivander gives Draco a considering look.

“I believe that might be the case,” he says, “although there is certainly no guarantee. The quasi-sentience of wands is part of what makes wandlore so mysterious and fascinating, you understand. As you know, Mr. Potter’s wand has acted of its own accord several times, and you--well, I only know what’s been printed, but have you found that your wand works as well for you since Mr. Potter returned it to you?” Draco’s face heats up again as he shakes his head. _No_ , he thinks, _definitely not_. Ollivander nods sagely. “Its allegiance shifted when he disarmed you. You should disarm him of it, and then it will be truly yours again.” 

“Right,” Draco says, voice tight. “I was actually thinking of...crafting a new one for myself.” Ollivander’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “Is that--is that something that you think I could do?” 

There’s a moment of utter silence that lasts far too long and makes Draco want to flee again, but then--

“Yes,” Ollivander says, “yes, I think you could.” Relief floods through Draco’s whole body, relaxes his muscles enough to allow him to step closer to Ollivander.

“Do you--do you have any recommendations for, you know, for books or--or--practical guides--or something?” he asks, poised with the blank side of his parchment and a self-inking quill. Ollivander rattles off the names of dozens of books, along with their publishing dates and notable facts about their authors, and Draco writes down every word - except for the bit about Benjamina Barmey building her house out of toadstools - and thanks him, and then, as he’s walking out of the shop, Ollivander’s voice stops him.

“In case you were wondering,” he says, eyes twinkling as Draco looks back at him, one foot out the door, “it is of my opinion that an extraordinary act, such as crafting one’s own wand, for instance, would prove one to be quite worthy of possessing magic once more, Mr. Malfoy.” Draco swallows, an uncomfortable chill coming over him, but he nods, thinks it’s okay, good even, that Ollivander knows the truth.

He’s late for work.

But George is proud of him.

\---

August proves to be a busy month. It’s the most hectic month at work, with returning and first-time Hogwarts students swarming the shop in bigger and bigger crowds the closer it gets to the first of September. George keeps the shop open on Sundays this month, albeit with limited hours of operation, so Draco is there every day, every day, and George asks him once, at the beginning of it, if he wants a day off here and there, one a week like he’s used to, and Draco responds by asking if his help would still be needed here, and George says, “Well - yeah, I still need you--need your help,” so Draco is there every day, every day. Draco’s muscles grow sore at the end of the first week, from the constant restocking merchandise and unpacking boxes and reshelving items after customers have made a mess of things, and remain so for the rest of the month, which makes his shoulders burn after work when he runs with Calliope. It’s not an altogether unpleasant feeling. 

His spends his lunch breaks - briefer, now, than before, because George needs his help, needs him - at Flourish and Blotts, putting in and picking up orders of books from the list of recommendations from Ollivander. He only orders one book at a time, because the clerk he all but shouted at upon his first visit trying to get them all raised his eyebrows at Draco, lowered his glasses, and told Draco in no uncertain terms that such a big order would simply not be possible to fill in the month before the school year begins and anyway, Mr. Malfoy, over half of these have been out of print for at least a century and can only be found at a library. So when the shop closes early on Sunday evenings, Draco goes to Cardiff to walk among the horrendously tall shelves of the Wizarding Public Library of Great Britain, to climb ladders and get his hands on enormous ancient tomes, to place them on a table with loud thumps and draw glares from wizards and witches around him, to squint at fading text and try to construe Old or Middle English as he takes notes. George is with him here, every time, holding the ladders steady far below Draco, falling asleep on old books that Draco’s pushed aside. It’s so easy in those moments to feel as if it’s normal, that it will always be this way, and sometimes Draco believes it, gets wild urges to reach over and take George’s hand and to lean across the table and kiss George that don’t feel wild at all, has to remind himself - painfully - that he doesn’t get to do that, that George isn’t his. It’s a rather horrible feeling.

There’s an evening in mid-August when Draco leaves after closing to go back to Spinner’s End for his daily run with Calliope and a quick dinner before heading right back to the shop for a few extra hours of stocking and shelving to replenish everything that’s been sold over the past two weeks. The door is locked and it’s just Draco and George in the shop, which is fine, and a crescendo is certainly _not_ setting off inside his head every time George calls to him from across the shop just to tell him a joke or ask how he’s holding up, if he needs a break or tea or a snack. It’s all very fine, and normal, and if Draco feels a bit sadder than usual, then it’s just from working these long, frantic shifts.

Outside, Diagon is lit only by pale yellow lamps above the Alley’s businesses and the orange glow of light bleeding through the lively windows and open doors of restaurants and pubs. A young girl runs by the shop window laughing, spinning around to run backward, shouting at her parents behind her to hurry along, promising they’ll love the iced butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. She was in the shop earlier with her parents - Muggles - and telling them excitedly that there’s a joke shop in Hogsmeade, too, that she’ll get to visit this year finally. Draco’s seen her running around outside all day with her mother and father in tow, smitten with magic, trying to show them everything about the world that’s hers now that they will never quite know. She’s adorable, and smaller than he and his friends were at thirteen, surely, and Draco feels no hatred or resentment or bitterness towards her, just keeps thinking of Meriweather, of Granger even, wondering if this is what it was like for them, how hard they tried to share their world with their parents, if they ever stopped trying. He finds himself suddenly curious about what Granger told her mother and father of the war she fought in, if she told them anything at all, if she ever will tell them how close she was to dying, to watching her friends die, or what she endured in front of a fireplace in Draco’s family home. 

George finishes the last bit of crushing empty boxes - Draco’s favorite part of big stock days like this, because George understands it’s much more fun and cathartic for them to jump on the mountain of cardboard until it’s flat than to use magic for it - narrowly avoids slipping on a stray bunch of packing parchment, and says, “Do you want to come up for pudding?” 

“I--what?” Draco says. George has turned away from him so Draco can’t see his face, but his ear and the back of his neck are all red. Draco feels rather like he’s eaten a Ton-Tongue Toffee. 

“It’s just….” George says, “I’ve got a rhubarb pie in my kitchen, and you said once that it’s your favorite, so I thought, you know.” He shrugs, turning toward Draco, his face still quite pink. Draco stares at him.

“You’ve...just _got_ a rhubarb pie in your kitchen?” Draco says, adopting a skeptical, humored expression. George flushes again, somewhat to Draco’s surprise. 

“Yes, well,” he says, clearing his throat, “it just appeared. Don’t ask me how.” His tone is playful and casual, but his face is still blushing bright, and oh, it makes Draco feel a bit weak-kneed. It makes him _want_ to ask, makes Draco imagine it, imagine George saying, “I baked it,” and, “I baked it especially for you, because you said once in passing that you love rhubarb pie and I thought, ‘I can bake that,’ and so I did, for you,” and, “I baked it especially for you, because you said once in passing that you love rhubarb pie and I thought, ‘I can bake that,’ and so I did, for you, in hopes that you would come up to my flat with me to eat it, because I couldn’t think of another way to get you into my home, even though I’m in yours all the time.” 

Draco clears his own throat, shrugs, says, “Well, alright.” 

George’s flat is small, like Draco knew it was. One bedroom, one tiny bathroom, one cramped kitchen. But it housed two, once. Draco can’t help but think that the space itself compounds pain. Without his brother sharing these confines, there’s more room for George’s grief and guilt and rage to grow, to inflate and fill up the corners and the miniscule cracks in the walls. It feels suffocating, even to Draco. Every mirror in the place is shattered, only one of them the subject of an attempt at repair, and a haphazard, half-hearted one, at that. It makes Draco hurt, right at the center of his chest, where sits a scar that George traced with his fingertips only weeks ago.

Draco doesn’t mention any of this.

He sits down at the little table just outside the kitchen where George sets the pie and hands him a fork. He looks up as George takes the seat across from him, watches George hover his own fork over the pie. George looks at him.

“Well,” he says with an awkward smile, “dig in, then.”

“Like a savage?” Draco asks haughtily, but then he does dig in, spears at the center of the pie and takes a bite.

“Right for the middle?!” George exclaims, eyes wide with impressed shock. “I thought you were supposed to have good manners.” He takes a bite of his own from the crust.

“The thing about being wealthy and high class, George, is that when you know all the rules, it’s more fun and noteworthy when you break them,” Draco says, around a large mouthful of rhubarb pie. “I’m not sure how this pie materialized in your home, but for the record, it isn’t nearly as tart as I prefer.”

“God, of _course_ you like it extra tart,” George says, rolling his eyes. The two of them make short work of the pie, despite what Draco considers to be excessive sweetness, and it’s late then, and they still have to open the shop in the morning, and Draco still has to take the Knight Bus back to Cokeworth, so George and Draco walk down the stairs and Draco’s body seems to want to do that strange wave thing again, the way it did back on the night of George’s birthday in this same street. 

“So, are you going to invite me over for tea next, then?” George asks quietly. Draco looks at him. George gives him a sheepish little smile, and Draco knows that if the lighting were better, he’d be able to see George blushing again. “It’s your turn, I think.”

“My turn?” Draco asks.

“Dinner at mine, breakfast at yours,” George says, ticking them off his fingers, “lunch at yours, now pudding at mine. Only tea’s left, and it's your move.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Are we going to complete the meal cycle? Seal this thing?”

“Seal this thing,” Draco repeats faintly, not a question like George’s, and not answer either, just….

“That’s where this is headed, isn’t it?” George asks. He’s stopped walking, and Draco is surprised to discover that he has, too. Draco sways, feels nothing but his heart pounding. George is impossibly close. Draco’s eyes sting every time he glances at George’s mouth, but he can’t stop letting his gaze drift. He takes a deep breath, lifts his eyes, meets George’s, sees all the things he feels reflected back at him there. He could let the desire between them swallow him up. He could.

He steps away. He nods once, sure to make George see him, see his admission, his apprehension. And then he takes another step away, lets the night swallow him up instead.

\---

Blaise and Pansy meet him at Flourish and Blotts with lunch some days - most days, really - and drag him outside with his new purchase before they get kicked out for having food inside the shop, force him to sit down at any nearby unoccupied table and eat something. Draco inelegantly shoves whatever meal they’ve brought him into his mouth while they take turns flipping through today’s book, and Blaise talks in circles about how work is going and Pansy talks in circles about how her job search is going, and Draco notices the passersby who give the three of them nasty looks for, well, daring to exist in public, he supposes, being who they are, and besides the customary twinge of anxiety high in his chest, he doesn't especially care.

Pansy is uncharacteristically quiet for a few lunches in a row when finally, in late August, she says, “I think I have a job prospect. A real one. Tentatively.” Of course, she chooses the moment Draco has just taken a too-large bite of his sandwich to announce this news, and he can't react as supportively as he feels until after Blaise gives Pansy a surprised look - both eyebrows slightly raised, too-long pauses between blinks. 

“Have you? Since when?” Blaise asks just as Draco swallows and says, “That's great, Pansy.” 

“What kind of job?” they say in unison. Pansy looks at them with equal parts exasperation and affection.

“Well,” she says, twisting a napkin in her hands, “a naturalist has reached out to me about an upcoming expedition.”

“A _naturalist_?” Blaise says.

“An _expedition_?” Draco says. 

Pansy rolls her eyes at both of them. “Yes, you clods. She’s planning an expedition to East Asia. She said that her cohorts told her to only request that I accompany her for the Japanese leg of the trip, but that she didn’t think that would be fair,” Pansy says, drawing her shoulders up and setting her back straight, proud and grateful, “and that she’s interested in something more than just my linguistic and semi-cultural usefulness, which is evidently the benchmark against which everyone else is measuring me, which I suppose is good to know.”

“ _You’re_ going on an _expedition_ to _Japan_ with a _naturalist_?” Blaise says, and Draco can just barely tell by the momentary lift of the corner of his mouth that he’s only carrying on like this to get a rise out of Pansy.

“Oh my god,” Pansy says, grabbing Draco’s book with both hands and swinging it at Blaise. Blaise is practiced at this particular defensive art, however, and casually raises his arm to shield his head. The hard spine of the book still catches his elbow, though, and Blaise allows himself to fully grimace at the pain. 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Pansy says to Draco, returning his book to him and throwing a dirty look at Blaise, who is rubbing his elbow and smirking. “You know I always enjoyed Care of Magical Creatures class when that miserable, brainless oaf wasn’t there and someone competent was in charge. _And_ I got an O on that exam. I would’ve gone on to N.E.W.T. Level if Grubbly-Plank was teaching.” She shrugs, looks down, picks at the shredded remains of her napkin. 

Draco is reminded suddenly, horribly, of all the times he sat next to her at mealtimes at Hogwarts and watched her pick at her food, listened to her talk so much and so loud in hopes that no one would notice that she wasn’t eating. She spent years trying to shrink herself, to become perfect, and Draco and Blaise never knew what to do, how to help her, except let her cry when she needed to while they rubbed her back or held her and tell her that they loved her, and sometimes Draco was certain that all that just made her feel worse. He would sit next to her, across from her, hold her hand in the corridors between classes, rest his head in her lap on the train, and she would smile and laugh and run her fingers through his hair, but when she looked away she could still see the way he was hurting her. 

They were each other’s first kiss at the beginning of fourth year, in an empty classroom, when he was afraid, still, of what he was, hoping he could make it work with Pansy, like it was always supposed to, and when he told her the truth about himself a week later, it was in a whisper in that same empty classroom, and she nodded and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and told him that this wasn’t anything to cry about or be scared of, that she was glad he told her, that he was perfectly normal, that she was willing to pretend to be his girlfriend if it would make things easier for him, and he walked out of that same empty classroom feeling thoroughly supported and she walked out with a broken heart. The guilt of it sits with him even now, permeated every thought of her that he had during the year that he and Pansy and Blaise lost together. But looking at her now...He was right, it turned out, about another treatment working, and she continues to look healthier every time he sees her, genuinely happy in an absolute way she hasn’t been in ages and ages. 

He glances at Blaise, who meets his eyes, and he knows Blaise must see it, too, the lightness about her heart. Pansy is one of the very few people whose happiness means as much to Draco as his own does. And he’s been thinking lately that he probably won’t ever reach that, that his heart will have a profound heaviness to it for the rest of his life, and if he can’t be happy, then Pansy should, at least. 

“I’m glad for you, Pans,” Draco says, and she looks up at him, testing his sincerity on his face, and, satisfied with what she finds there, smiles. 

Blaise pokes her arm so that she looks in his direction as well, and he gives her a real smile, albeit a small one, and asks, “So who’s the naturalist, then?” Pansy’s eyes go wide for a tiny moment before she looks back down again.

“Oh,” she says, “Well.” She coughs. “Luna Lovegood. As a matter of fact.” 

\---

George closes the shop door at noon on the first of September, slumps against the glass pane of it as he turns the lock, and lets out a great sigh of relief. Draco himself could nearly cry. The last week was an awful, final push so frenzied that Draco could never set foot outside the shop, even for five minutes of fresh air, until the doors closed. Blaise and Pansy had to bring him lunch inside, awkward in and of itself, and more than once, Draco simply tossed the food in the back room next to his bag to eat later and shoved various boxes and bottles into his friends’ arms or pushed them toward crowds of customers, uttering a single, desperate, “ _Help me!_ ” to guarantee that they actually would. 

(It always worked. Each time, they gave him long, angry looks, and didn’t take to their impromptu work assignment with pride or joy, but they did help carry some of the crushing weight for at least that one hour, Blaise smoothly selling everyone twice as many products as they intended to buy, Pansy expertly handling money while restocking shelves in the midst of transactions. George caught Draco’s eyes every time this occurred, his expression unreadable save for a nearly indiscernible raise of one eyebrow, and Draco gave one small shake of his head, hoping George would read it as he meant it, a silent reassurance, a promise that Draco’s friends can be trusted. George never brought it up later, so Draco assumed he believed him, and the significance of that sat with him like a little whirling thrill around his ribs.) 

Today the shop was open for only four hours, and had only ten customers, all of them parents trailing in to buy surprise gifts to send their children at Hogwarts. Tomorrow the shop is closed for a full day of thorough restocking and cleaning. The day after, mail orders will start coming in from Hogwarts students. But now the shop is closed, and Draco adjusts the strap of his bag across his shoulder and chest as he watches George turn around, slumping still and smiling when his eyes land on Draco. 

“Off to the library again, then?” he asks. Draco shrugs one shoulder.

“Only always,” Draco says. “You joining me?” George shrugs.

“Only always,” he says. Draco smiles, tries to hide it by turning toward the till and grabbing a box of cinnamon candy from the counter and shoving it into his bag for a snack at the library later.

“Oi, that’s stealing,” George says, his attempt at stern falling short and ending up somewhere between amused and flirtatious. Draco gives him a smug look and starts walking toward him.

“No, it’s fine,” he says, “I know the owner.” George huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes, holds out his arm for the Side-Along Apparition. He lands them a full mile away from the library.

“For your cheek,” George says when Draco turns to him with a question in his eyes. He smirks at Draco’s indignant squawk, plunges his hand into Draco’s bag and retrieves the box of candy, opens it and pops one in his mouth. “Come along now,” he says, walking in the direction of the library. “Shouldn’t waste the daylight.”

They spend the whole afternoon at the library. The candy is all consumed within the first hour, and George disappears suddenly when Draco isn’t looking and returns to their table a few minutes later, arms full of dozens of tiny boxes of cinnamon candy, having emptied the vending booth in the lobby of them entirely. It’s probably the only way George stays awake, eating that candy, and at one point he starts flicking them at Draco, cackling loudly when Draco snickers and catches three in a row in his mouth. It nearly gets them kicked out, and when he sees a severe-looking woman with pale skin and angry eyes heading toward them, Draco darts away from the table, vanishes between two towering shelves. George appears next to him a minute later, muffling laughter as he - quietly, glancing around a bit fearfully - admonishes Draco for leaving him to fend for himself.

“You know us Malfoys,” Draco whispers wryly, “only ever thinking of ourselves.” George leans against the shelf and narrows his eyes at Draco until Draco looks at him. 

“Sometimes I don’t know if you’re joking or not when you say things like that,” George says softly. Draco looks down for a moment, looks back up. He shrugs.

“It’s not like it’s untrue,” he says. George hums, turns toward the shelf, runs his fingers down the spines of a few books. Draco’s gaze, unbidden, follows the path of George’s fingers. He bites his lip, pretends a silent scream isn’t echoing throughout his skull, and forces himself to look at George’s thoughtful expression.

“I don’t really believe it’s that simple,” George says quietly, his eyes on the books in front of him. “Not anymore.” He glances at Draco and clears his throat. “Come on back, or someone’s going to steal our table. You know how it is around here. Like vultures, these people are.”

Two hours later, the sun is beginning to set in the cloudy sky, producing a sickly yellow haze that barely diffuses through the tall stained glass windows, and George reaches for a book that Draco’s just set aside. 

“This looks about four hundreds years more recent than any other books you’ve looked at here,” he says as he pulls it across the table before Draco can say anything. He raises his eyebrows at the title, and at Draco, who rolls his eyes and goes back to reading the page on the standard process of extracting wand wood from trees. “‘ _Meddles with Muggles: The Rights and Wrongs of Involving Magic in the Lives of Your Muggle Friends_ ’?” Draco groans.

“I just want to know if I need to worry about, like, Calliope’s physiology or whatever, if I make more potions for her,” he says. At George’s startled look, he says, “I gave her Pepper-Up Potion back in December when she had a cold. And she’s applied for a job only one town over from Cokeworth, which pays better and isn’t as far of a commute as what she’s got now, and I’ve been stewing Felix Felicis in that little cauldron by the stove for about six months at this point, so if she does get an interview, I’d like to be able to slip her a drop or two in her morning tea, but not if it might poison her just because she’s a Muggle--why are you looking at me like that? You always do that when I ramble. You can just tell me to shut up, you know, instead of staring at me all slack-jawed and wide-eyed like a--” Draco cuts himself off then, closes his own mouth, glances away from George, who is wearing an unreadable expression.

“Like a what?” George asks. Draco looks back at him. It’s been months now since he first noticed how blue George’s eyes are, and he still somehow finds it surprising. He shakes his head.

“Nothing,” Draco says quietly. He looks down at the book open on the table in front of him, at the long scroll of notes he’s taken today, at George’s fingers curling around _Meddles with Muggles_ open to the table of contents, and he makes a decision. “After I finish with this book,” he says, finally achieving a casual tone when he wants it, “do you want to come over? For tea?” 

The bouncing of George’s knee under the table ceases instantly. Draco looks up again, meets George’s eyes. It’s tense between them, but only for a moment, until a certainty is reached, wordlessly, and Draco can feel a blush rising hot upon his face. He doesn’t look away, though, and is rewarded with the sight of George’s skin going pink under his freckles. 

“Yeah,” George says thickly. He clears his throat and swallows, and Draco shamelessly follows the motion with his eyes, and when he glances up again, George’s eyes are wide, his face bright red. “Yes,” George says again, clearer this time, if a little shakier, “I’d like that very much.”

Draco’s hands are shaking more than usual by the time he’s packing up his notes, but he’s relieved to see, when George returns from placing all the books on a cart for reshelving, that George looks nervous, too. They Apparate to Cokeworth, a few blocks from Spinner’s End, and Draco nearly drops the key while he’s trying to unlock the door, can only focus on how close George is standing, the heat he can feel from George’s body even through their clothes. He manages it, finally, and George whispers a spell that sets every lamp in the house alight as Draco pushes the door open. He takes five steps inside, hears the door shut behind them, turns halfway back before he’s pressed against the wall, George crowding his space, one hand twisted in Draco’s shirt. 

“Your move,” George says gruffly. 

“My move,” Draco confirms in a mutter, but he doesn’t make one. They stand there frozen, unsettlingly close, their faces mere inches from one another’s, in a suffocating silence. Draco keeps looking from George’s eyes to his lips and back. He watched, from the corner of his eye, George spend their last hour at the library biting his lips, felt almost bad for striking such anxiety through George, but now he’s glad for it, seeing George’s swollen mouth, being so, so close to kissing him.

“Jesus,” George whispers, and Draco realizes that George’s hopeful, eager expression is falling, hears awful alarm bells going off in his head because of it. “Did I--I thought I wasn’t reading this wrong, but I--” George flattens one hand against the wall next to Draco’s head, begins pushing off, moving away as he says, “If you don’t want to--” but Draco stops him, grabs him by the shirt with both fists, pulls him back close again.

“I do!” Draco says, watching George’s eyes widen again. “I do. I really, _really_ do. I just need a second. Just--” He swallows, licks his lips. “Just another minute, please.” George nods, and silence settles over them again, and Draco closes his eyes, breathes deeply, takes stock of his feelings, the way Meriweather taught him.

He feels, impossibly, like he did that night on the astronomy tower, like he’s balanced precariously on the head of a pin, and there’s one decision that’s going to change everything, regardless of which direction it will take him. If he takes what’s being offered to him, then he’ll get hurled into a terrifying unknown, where there’s a chance of light, of happiness and warmth. And if he backs away, if he hesitates, then he’ll be pulled backward, remain in the shadowy place he knows well, where he’s safe, even if it’s where he’s also sad, a lot of the time, and scared, and shaking. This moment finds him standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down over a dark, foggy ravine, and for a split second of panic, he’s loosening his grip on George’s shirt, preparing to bolt, but instead he opens his eyes and sees George, expression open and longing and earnest, and he realizes, in sudden stark relief, that George is with him on the edge of this cliff, willing to jump off it with him, wanting it, ready to hold his hand the whole way down. 

“Alright,” he breathes out, and George has enough time for half of a, “Yeah?” before Draco’s grasp tightens again and he pulls George in by his shirt, and kisses him. 

Once, when Draco was a very young child, and his mother and father left him in the care of Auntie Shafiq while they went on holiday, she took him to a bookshop that specialized in books about the lives of Muggles. In one such book, _How the Other, Other Half Lives: Muggle Life in the United States_ , Draco saw a photo of a dam bursting, watched in fascination as the brick and stone and cement gave way to a rush of water too strong and powerful to hold back any longer. Later, when Draco is thinking about this first kiss with George, trying to put words to it, he’ll remember that photo in that book, know acutely that that’s what this feels like - a rush, a break, a moment of pure relief followed immediately by intense desperation for more - but right now he’s not thinking of that dam, or that bookshop, or anything except the intoxicating feeling of George’s lips on his, the solid warm weight of George’s body moving against him, the pull of George’s hands in his hair, the fluttering of his own heart when George’s tongue licks into his mouth. God, _this_ \- this is what it’s supposed to feel like, this is what Draco never thought he’d find, this is what Draco won’t ever be able to stop thinking about, wanting, chasing. 

His breath hitches when he feels George palming him through his jeans. He hadn't even realized how hard he is. George's hand travels to Draco’s belt buckle and he stops kissing Draco to ask, breathy like Draco’s never heard him, “Can I? Please?” It's the _please_ that goes straight to Draco’s dick, turns his brain, which had been functioning fairly well under the current circumstances just moments ago, into slush. 

“Yes, yes,” he manages in a choked voice, nodding frantically, and he barely has a chance to be embarrassed at his own eagerness before George expertly unbuckles, unbuttons, and unzips all the inconveniences and wraps his hand around Draco's cock. Draco moans at the contact, tosses his head back so it hits the wall, which would hurt, presumably, if every nerve in his body wasn't so keyed up and narrowly focused on the sensation of George working his cock, his hand sure and big and teasing. George presses his lips to Draco's exposed neck, grazes his teeth along his throat, and Draco lets out another low moan, rolls his eyes back at the quick, promising suck George gives to his skin vibrating with sound under George's mouth.

“Kiss me,” George requests, pleads, and Draco does, muttering, “Yes, yes,” again as he tugs gently at George's bottom lip with his teeth. It elicits a sweet little cry from George, which sits low and pleasing in Draco's belly as George speeds up his hand. Draco's hands move to George's arms, feels the firm muscle shifting under George's warm skin, the way he’s wanted to feel for months, and the knowledge that it's because of _his dick_ , that the strong arms he’s watched picking up boxes and swishing a wand in the air and uprooting weeds are working like this now because _George is jerking him off_ , hits him all at once, punches the orgasm from him. He digs his trembling fingers hard into George’s arms, mouth going slack even as he vaguely registers his own voice whining George's name. 

A minute or so must pass in pleasured quiet, with Draco’s eyes shut tight. He hears George whispering a particular fluid banishment spell - and not even the most effective one, which seems amateurish for someone who experienced adolescence without a moment of privacy, surely, and when Draco gets his magic back, he’ll have to teach George the best one - and is slightly aware of the mess on his dick and George’s hand disappearing. He feels George tucking him carefully back into his jeans, zipping and buttoning and buckling, even, again, and something about it is so funny that it tickles at the back of his brain, and he knows he’d be laughing now if he wasn’t so...whatever he is, at the moment. He still hasn’t quite caught his breath when George shakes his head a bit, chuckles against Draco’s jaw, and says, breathy still but loud, “Not even going to return the favor? Typical Slytherin.” Draco makes sure to roll his eyes with his whole body and let out an enormous sigh right in George’s ear.

“Too impatient to let a grateful man catch his damn breath?” He shoves George away and follows close - George’s eyes go wide with dismay at first but a sly gleam of understanding replace the surprise with each step forward Draco takes - again and again until George’s back hits the opposite wall and Draco is pressed up against him. “Typical Gryffindor,” Draco says, his fingers slipping just a little under the waistband of George’s jeans, enough to tease, to make George bite his lip again. Draco smiles and George rolls his eyes, starts in on more insults which only get choked off when Draco tugs at his belt. 

Draco’s trying to be smooth, seem practiced and knowing, but he struggles to unbuckle George’s belt with his shaking hands, is about to swear and apologize under his breath when George covers Draco’s hands with his own. Draco’s gaze shoots up, meets and locks onto George’s as George guides Draco’s fingers to undo his belt. It’s unexpectedly erotic and intense, being steered like this, and by the time George’s jeans are unzipped, George’s hands are trembling almost as much as Draco’s.

“I got it from here,” Draco says lowly, and George nods, flattens his hands on the wall at his sides, licks his lips. Draco smiles and kisses him again, waits until he feels George’s hands in his hair again to go any further. He slips his hand inside, feels the heat from George’s hard cock against his palm, strokes his fingertips up and down the length of him. Draco doesn’t think he’s as good at this as George is but he wants to be, wants it to be good for George, doesn’t want to give George a reason to leave, so he teases, circles his thumb around the head of George’s dick, works him in steady strokes, takes it slow so he can appreciate the feeling of it, the noises George is making, the sheen of sweat on George’s neck. 

George’s cock is warm in his hand, decently long and deliciously thick. Draco skates his mouth along George’s jaw, sucks a little mark there as he looks down between them, watches the little reassuring beads of precome gathering at the tip. Draco wants George in his mouth, eventually, and - _fuck_ \- inside him, eventually, when he’s ready, his _first_ , but for now this is perfect, more than enough, that George lets him touch him, _wants_ him to touch him like this. He licks a broad stripe along George’s neck, nips just under his ear, and George comes with a sudden shout, a cry of Draco’s name, and Draco tries to memorize the sounds, wants to race to the Pensieve in his closet and leave them there for safekeeping, but he stays, presses little kisses to George’s face, claims his lips again even if it’s just to feel George’s labored breathing. 

George manages to whisper the spell again, and a sudden, horrible, chilling thought appears in Draco’s mind: What if this is all George wants? What if he only ever wanted a wank? Or a wank and some blowjobs and--whatever else he could get? What if George just wants casual? The possibility makes Draco feel ill.

“If you, um,” he stammers, taking a step back, flinching at George’s sharp look. He clears his throat. “If you want, like, casual--I mean, if you just want sex, I….” He pauses to swallow, glances away as George slowly rearranges himself, does up his jeans again, his belt. “I can’t do that,” he says. “Merlin help me, but I--I fancy you quite a bit, I mean, to a truly embarrassing degree, and I’m rather traditional as it is, you might be surprised to learn, so I can’t _do_ casual, not really at all, but especially not with you, so I’m, ah, I’m hoping you don’t--”

“I don’t want casual,” George says, voice so steady and certain that it nearly knocks the air from Draco’s lungs. “I mean, did you really think after--If I only wanted sex, I wouldn’t’ve kissed you like that.” He leans back against the wall, shakes his head, huffs out a laugh and mutters, “Like a dam breaking open.” Draco blinks, relaxes, warmth overtaking the momentary chill of anxiety that had settled in his body.

“Oh,” Draco says. “Alright. Good.” George meets his eyes, and Draco feels a thrill at the pink tint still on George’s skin. “Well, then, do you actually want some tea?” George lets out a bark of laughter.

“Yeah,” he says happily. “Yeah, that’d be really nice.” 

They drink tea. They make out leaning uncomfortably against the counter. They eat dinner. They make out while their forks clatter to the floor. They eat more cinnamon candy. They make out on the couch, George’s broad hands wandering under Draco’s shirt, fingers toying with the buttons. They make out in George’s chair, Draco straddling him, grinding his hips down. They make out in Draco’s bathroom, the taste of minty toothpaste still fresh in their mouths. They make out in Draco’s bed, George wearing Draco’s loosest sweatpants, still a bit tight on him.

Draco feels lighter than he has in years, maybe in his whole life. He feels so light he could float into the air like this, fly away without a broom, right out the window, into the night sky. He settles against George’s chest, curled up on his side as always, but with George now, next to him, holding him close with an arm around him, protective. It weighs him down pleasantly, makes him feel secure, grounded, like he couldn’t fly away if he tried, not without George there with him. 

George wants to be with him.

Draco falls asleep feeling safe - truly, purely safe - for the first time in ages.

\--- 

He tells Calliope the next day on their evening run, says, “George and I - we’re together now.” It's not especially easy to get out, both because of vulnerability Draco is still getting comfortable with and because of the heavy breathing. He's expecting her to be a little surprised, at least, but she throws up her hands - actually _throws up her hands_ \- and says, “Oh, thank God!” And then, to Draco’s horror, reaches into her shirt, pulls out the cross necklace, and kisses it, raises it toward the sky before placing it back inside her shirt. She does all of this without breaking her stride in any way, which is extremely annoying.

“So, what? You knew how we felt about each other, somehow?” he asks, trying to hide his irritation. Calliope laughs, which makes it more difficult. 

“Is that a joke?” she says, giving him an amused look. “There was no ‘somehow’ about it. You two have been _disturbingly_ obvious. Oh, does this mean the sexual tension will be less palpable? Please say yes.”

“It hasn't been that bad,” Draco insists grumpily, rolling his eyes. Calliope lets out a cackle that echoes through the rainy streets. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco sees the curtains in one window of a nearby house open, sees the old, mean face of its nosy inhabitant. He's glad, as he always is, that their speed takes them out of sight soon enough.

“Draco, I assure you it's been ‘that bad.’ In fact, sometimes it was so much that _I_ would pray for forgiveness afterward,” Callope says. Draco frowns.

He tells Meriweather, too, a few days later. He’s satisfied with her reaction, which is to lose her effortless cool for the first time since he’s known her and jump so violently that her quill and parchment fall to the floor. She’s picking them up when Draco says, more smug than he’s allowed himself to be with her in weeks, “It’s really your fault, you know. I wouldn’t have even become friends with him if it weren’t for your _homework_.” She sits up and raises an eyebrow at him, unamused. 

“Oh, please. Yes, you would have,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear and rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “So, you found someone to jump off the cliff with you?” Draco smiles, ducks his head to hide it. 

“Turns out someone wanted to,” he says. 

“And is it less scary?” Meriweather asks. 

Draco takes a moment to consider that. It’s still terrifying, of course, this whole thing. He doesn’t know how any of this is supposed to work. Most of his classmates spent their latter years at Hogwarts getting together and hooking up and fighting and breaking up and getting _back_ together with each other, while he used up every waking moment - of which there were many, due to the fact that he barely slept - worrying, first, about his father in prison and his mother at home with her mad sister, and then, about both his father and mother at home where his mother’s mad sister was the least of their troubles. With George so far, it’s been… _easy_ , strangely enough. They fit. Complement one another. Go together like dragon’s blood and knotgrass. Draco feels, with every new day with George, that a shred of Darkness is being pulled from within him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever shake all of it, doesn’t think he’ll ever be fully in the clear, or able to let his guard down regarding Dark Arts and Dark objects, but.

It’s only been less than a week, and still Draco can tell, knows in his bones, that George is slowly guiding him out of the shadows, into a spot where the light can warm his skin and shine on his hair. It is scary, is the thing. The closer he gets to a light source, the more his Darkness can be seen, his secrets, everything he’s worked so hard to keep hidden for so long. But George wants to see it all, has seen so much of it already and still wants him, asks for more of it every day. And that’s...that makes the difference, he’s realizing.

“Less scary,” Draco says quietly, nodding. “Yes. Much less scary.”

\---

They’re taking it slow. Draco insists on it, and George says, “Of course, Draco. I’m not interested in doing anything you don’t want to. Just to be clear, for the time being, do I still get to kiss you and put my hand on your dick?” and Draco blushes bright red and nods and shoves his own hand down the front of George’s sweatpants so George stops laughing. George teases him about it sometimes, when George starts kissing lower than his collarbone and Draco fists a hand in George’s hair to pull him up to his mouth again, or when Draco turns away from him to change clothes, but it’s not mean, Draco knows that. It’s always accompanied by a sincerely appreciative smile. George likes that Draco is so traditional, thinks it’s sweet and promising, finds meaning in the way Draco wants to be certain that George - that the two of them - are worth it. 

Almost three weeks into September, Draco finally faces George as he unbuttons his shirt before bed. He looks down still, suddenly insecure about his scars, his trembling hands. He only looks up from the floor when George’s feet enter his field of vision. George stands there in front of him, hesitant, catches Draco’s eyes and then raises his hand to Draco’s chest, tracing the scars with his fingertips. Draco’s heart pounds at the contact, just like it did months ago, and this time George presses his hand flat to Draco’s chest, over Draco’s heart, and Draco knows he feels it, the wild thrashing, the animal freed from its cage yet still rather afraid to leave it.

“I wanted to touch you like this back in July,” George says quietly. “I could feel how fast your heart was beating.” Draco nods and holds George’s gaze as he continues unbuttoning his shirt. George licks his lips, takes a shuddering breath.

“Did you ever have, like, a crisis or anything,” Draco asks suddenly, “about, you know, me being a Malfoy and you being a Weasley?” George raises his eyebrows and then glances down as Draco shrugs out of his shirt. “I mean,” Draco clarifies, voice cool and calm like undressing for George to see so closely isn’t making his lungs ache, “when you realized you fancied me, did you ever have to argue with yourself about how _no_ , you couldn’t _possibly_ like me, I’m a _Malfoy_ for Merlin’s sake, and our families have hated each other for _decades_ , this must be some mistake?” George has an amused look on his face even as he trails his fingers down Draco’s torso. 

“Sounds like _you_ did,” George says. Draco shakes his head.

“No,” he says, “and don’t deflect.” George sighs a little. 

“I didn’t either,” he confesses, looking down. “I think I got all of that out of my system when I realized I was thinking of you as a friend. By the time I fancied you, I just….” He hooks a finger in Draco’s belt loop, teases his knuckles at the skin above the waistband of Draco’s jeans. “It wasn’t hard to deal with. Not as much as I’d’ve expected. I knew what you are, by then.” He looks up to meet Draco’s eyes with a little half-smile. “Soft, remember?” 

Draco bites his lip, looks away, down, toys with the hem of George’s t-shirt. After a few moments, George says quietly, “Hey.” Draco looks up again, into George’s eyes. “Do you mind me saying that? Using that word?” He looks sad. It breaks Draco’s heart a little. “It seems like the kind of word that might’ve been used to hurt you, before.” And just like that, looking at this man who cares about him so much, Draco feels his heart repairing, growing, a beating bit of patchwork beneath his ribs.

“It sounds good from you,” he says, and pulls George in for a kiss, cradling George’s face. George goes along easily, eagerly, the kiss tender and telling. Draco’s mouth drifts to George’s jawline, nips at the skin there, pleasantly rough from two days of not shaving. A short, broken moan escapes George’s throat and Draco feels his own cock harden, feels George’s hand pressing at him over thick denim. 

“Let me?” George asks, breathless, and Draco nods, drags his teeth down George’s neck as George unzips his jeans.

\---

Draco starts bringing George around to the Manor for dinner once a week. The first time, his father raises an eyebrow, waves his wand to conjure another plate and set of cutlery at the table in the small dining room. It’s obvious that Lucius and Narcissa are both under the impression that it’s an isolated occurrence, but George keeps coming over to share dinner with the Malfoys, to sit at their family dining table wearing his garish clothing and talking to the three of them about his shop, about his inventions, about his life. Not his life with Draco, obviously, not the truth of it. But it’s clear to Draco’s parents that Draco and George are friends - real friends, like Draco and Blaise and Pansy are. Draco can tell that his mother and father are a bit unnerved, confused, but they’re conversational and cooperative like they were at that lunch in July, and they don’t let George see their misgivings, and Draco’s grateful for it, shows it by coming over for dinner by himself once a week still, sometimes twice, taking tea and pudding in the sitting room with them afterward, accompanying his mother to the library or his father to his office then, just being around them before he goes home to Spinner’s End, to the Devil’s Snare enjoying the nighttime in the back garden, to George. He’s missed his mother and father, spending time with them at the Manor, and he likes this adjusted routine, likes that it causes him to slow down, forces him to prioritize, makes it more difficult for him to continue obsessing over his wandlore research so dangerously - George’s word, whispered in Draco’s ear after Draco’s third consecutive night of little sleep spent poring over books and notes, making Draco’s brain defog itself, making him feel like he was waking up from reliving sixth year. 

He’s stretched out on his back across the sofa in his father’s office one evening in late September, a book held above his face in one hand while the other glides through the air, catching and releasing a Golden Snitch. His father sits at a desk a couple of meters away, peering down at a snuffbox made of silver and green onyx. It’s one of George’s recent manufacturing, a defensive object, akin to the Shield Hats and Shield Gloves. The green onyx is meant to act as a protector against the Dark Arts, an active talisman to safeguard its owner. George mentioned it last Wednesday at dinner, somewhat jokingly asked if Lucius was interested in testing its capabilities of shielding against Dark Magic, and Draco’s father took him up on the offer. He’s been poking at it since George brought it over two nights ago, performing various spells, dipping it into different potions, trying to get past its defenses. Every ten minutes or so, Draco hears him murmur, “Excellent magic,” and Draco can’t help but smile a bit, feel proud of George’s brilliance.

The record player against the wall across the room is spinning loud, dark orchestral music from its gramophone. With the wings of the Snitch fluttering in his fist, the vision of his father’s head bowed over his desk and readjusting his glasses, and the cellos and oboes sounding out around them, it’s just like a scene from what might as well be a former life, balmy summer evenings when he still wanted to be exactly like his father when he grew up. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his father slowly straighten his back, take off his spectacles, and when Draco puts his book down and turns his head, he sees that his father’s eyes are closed. Draco’s anxiety cries out for him to be concerned, but he’s struck by how peaceful his father looks in this moment, how still.

“I missed this,” Lucius says quietly, in the soft space of one song fading into another. “The music. While I was in Azkaban. I missed my music.” He opens his eyes and looks at Draco. “You and George Weasley are friends. That’s an interesting development.” 

“That's being generous, probably,” Draco says, an indulgent smile on his face. At his father's continued, unblinking gaze, Draco adds, “It's not like I meant for it to happen. It just...did.”

“Mmhmm,” his father says. Draco shrugs as well as he can from his current position.

“He had a...particularly difficult time, after everything, you know,” he says, looking away from his father, up toward the ceiling. He feels like he has to be careful of what he says here, careful to not give too many of George's secrets away, careful to frame it like it's merely his own opinion. “I think he felt as though everyone was moving on except him.” At that, his father hums, kinder than before, and Draco turns his head toward him again. “That isn't an especially unfamiliar feeling in this house, is it?”

“Not especially, no,” his father admits in a wry tone. Draco screws his mouth to one side for a moment.

“I think he just needs to be around someone new,” he says, “away from people who were close to him before, so he can just become whoever he is now without all the fuss.” He grits his teeth, hoping it isn't obvious that he’s projecting, just a little, with that last part. His father hums agreeably again. Draco’s jaw relaxes as he turns away, once more facing the ceiling, and picks up his book, lets go of the Snitch only to reach out and grab it from the air again seconds later.

“Even away from his family?” Lucius asks suddenly, his voice distant and casual. If Draco didn't know his father so well, he’d think it was simply innocent curiosity. He does know better, though, knows what his father is truly asking: _Just how far removed is he from Arthur Weasley? He's not taking information about us back to his father or that damn war hero younger brother of his, is he? Can we trust him? Honestly?_

“Well, who can blame him?” Draco replies, sounding bored, not moving except to turn the page in the book he’s holding above his face. “He's obviously the only worthwhile one.” His father lets out a derisive laugh.

“Obviously,” Lucius agrees. Draco notices, peripherally, his father placing his glasses on his face again and lifting the snuffbox to eye level. “Yes, he is quite ambitious,” Lucius murmurs to himself, something very nearly like admiration in his voice. Draco loses his focus on the words in front of him, feeling only a rush of pride.

\---

George has been bringing Draco to weekly dinners at the Burrow, too, which. Well. It’s not _all_ bad. 

Fleur seems to like him a lot. She grabs Draco by the arm as soon as he walks through the door behind George, begins speaking to him in rapid French. He thinks she’s lonely here in England, clearly missing her family and friends, and he can’t exactly blame her, so he goes along easily, thankful, suddenly, for all those times in the Manor, when Bellatrix or the Dark Lord or Yaxley or Rowle were lurking about like they belonged there, and he and his father and mother would whisper to each other in French, under the guise of not letting Draco’s ages of tutoring and practice go to waste. 

Fleur seems to like him a lot, so Bill does as well. It makes it easier, when the whole rest of the enormous herd is there, to just sort of group off, him and George and Fleur and Bill. The four of them sit together at the end of the dinner table, or in the same corner of the living room before or after the meal, and George and Bill give Draco a mild, teasing version of hell simply because he’s a Malfoy while Draco and Fleur roll their eyes at each other and pretend they’re both above it all, that their respective breeding matters, and it’s a good laugh for them all, just for them. Sometimes Draco catches himself looking at Bill’s face for too long, studying the scarred skin there, and sometimes Fleur catches him at it, too, says, “Isn’t my husband handsome?” with a dreamy smile on her face before kissing Bill’s cheek and telling him, “A Weasley so good-looking even a Malfoy can’t keep his eyes off you, hmm?” and Draco very deliberately looks anywhere but at George, and later when they return to Spinner’s End, George chuckles into Draco’s mouth until Draco gets annoyed enough to shove him back onto the bed.

It's different, though, when Bill and Fleur aren't at the Burrow. His instinct is to put some distance between himself and George so as to not draw attention to the way they interact with one another, but there's no one else he wants to speak to or even acknowledge, save for Molly. He finds himself escaping the obnoxious presence of Potter and Granger and Weasley and the accusatory glares of Arthur by busying himself in the kitchen, helping George’s mother with the dinner preparation, going behind her in the final steps of the cooking so she has less mess to worry about cleaning up later. He sits at the kitchen table and chops carrots manually, assures Molly that he doesn't mind it this way, that it's meditative to do this kind of task without magic. It earns him her sympathy and gratitude, which is a more valuable currency around here than actual currency, and that’s really saying something for a family who's been using the same old set of copper pots and pans since 1968.

In the last week of September, he and George arrive at the Burrow, as usual, and within moments, he hears George yell, “Charlie!” and then sees him disappear in the rough embrace of a muscular mass of burnt skin and wild ginger hair. When the affectionate display is over, Draco quickly becomes an object of scrutiny, but at least now he can properly see this new brother as well. Charlie is stocky, built broad like George, but more so, and shorter. His arms are bared - and tattooed - in a sleeveless v-neck shirt, and if not for the scorch scars all over them and his chest, mapping every near miss with dragons, Draco would assume that Charlie is in a rock band. 

“You must be Draco Malfoy, then,” Charlie says after a few moments. Draco nods, ignoring the anxiety creeping around his ribs. If he can get Charlie to like him, too, then that's half the original family, plus Fleur, and he can wield that like the protective charms he mastered in a single class period in fifth year, like the wand kept concealed in his father's walking stick, like the goddamned sword of Godric fucking Gryffindor. 

“Hmm,” Charlie says, an intrigued little hesitant sound. “My brother’s told me quite a lot about you.”

“Which brother?” Draco asks, and Charlie laughs, and George gives Draco a significant look, a sneaky thumbs up down around his waist as he hovers nearby, behind Charlie. A good sign, then, the laughing. Draco’s anxiety slows in its creeping upward movement. 

“Fair enough,” Charlie says. “A bit from all of them, really, and from Ginny as well, and Mum and Dad. You’re a controversial figure round here.”

“I can't imagine why,” Draco says dryly. 

“Say, are you still friends with--oh, what's his name?” Charlie says suddenly, muttering to himself at the end. “Tall black guy. Blake, I think.” Draco can't stop one burst of laughter from bounding out of his mouth at the thought of Blaise being called ‘Blake,’ of all things.

“Blaise,” he corrects, and Charlie snaps his fingers, nodding.

“Blaise! Zabini. Right,” Charlie says. “You still talk to him?” 

“Yeah,” Draco says, choosing to edit out his habitual, “He's my best friend,” until he knows where Charlie is going with this. “How do you know him?” he asks instead.

“He's the one who came to get me for the battle,” Charlie says quietly. Something inside Draco goes very still. He always forgets, somehow, what Blaise did that night, the choice he made. It must have felt impossible. It might well have been the only time Blaise ever felt fear. 

“Apparated right to the dragon sanctuary in Romania in the dead of night,” Charlie says, and Draco realizes that Blaise has never even told him this. “Scared the hell out of me. I nearly attacked him. And he just shouted at me to shut up and get ready to fight.” Charlie shakes his head and shrugs. “I tried to get in touch with him after, to thank him, but all my Owls just kept returning. Figured he didn't want to be found.”

“Sounds like him,” Draco admits. “Blaise isn't the type to bask in praise, or even want it.”

“Odd for a Slytherin, isn't it?” the youngest Weasley brother blurts out from the corner sofa. Draco rolls his eyes and turns toward the rude interruption. “Aren’t you lot all ambitious? Makes no sense to not want praise, then.”

“You’ve obviously got no idea how far one can get by remaining invisible, Weasley,” Draco says snidely. “Not that I’d expect anyone who wishes to become an Auror to be able to comprehend that type of cunning. Honestly, your department could benefit from targeted outreach to recruit Slytherins. In fact, feel free to take that idea to your superiors. I’m sure it will earn you some much-needed favor.” 

“Anyway,” Draco says, turning back toward a wide-eyed Charlie after the briefest moment of breathing in his feeling of deep satisfaction, “I can pass along the message to him, if you’d like.”

“Sure,” Charlie says, nodding easily. “And, hey, a friend of both George _and_ Blaise Zabini? You’re alright by me, Malfoy.” Charlie holds out his hand and Draco gratefully shakes it.

“Why are you even here tonight, Charlie?” George asks, poking at a dark patch of skin on Charlie's shoulder. It must be a relatively new burn, judging by the way Charlie winces. “It's not like you to just come home for a midweek dinner.”

“Got an Owl from Bill. Demanded I be here. Said it was extremely important and he’d never forgive me if I missed it,” Charlie says. He jerks his elbow back, only missing a strike to George's side because George dodges it, hops away with a funny twist of his upper body. It's clearly an advanced move, the kind that's been perfected over years and years of practice. 

Draco smiles, thinks of Blaise, of how the two of them learned the best ways to avoid Pansy’s feet and fists and elbows and open palms by the time they were seven years old, how they needed to learn whole new ways to defend themselves once they were eleven and Pansy had hold of a wand and a library full of books about hexes. George asked a couple weeks ago if Draco grew up feeling lonely. Draco said no, because he didn’t, but George found it hard to understand how an only child, in a huge isolated house, with only two real friends to visit, could feel anything different. Draco thinks he has a more articulate response now.

The Burrow is a bit more crowded tonight than it’s been for the past month, and at least two times louder, even without Bill and Fleur there yet. In addition to Charlie, the youngest Weasley is in attendance, animatedly discussing her summer of practices with the Holyhead Harpies and their upcoming season. Her enthusiasm has got Granger excitedly talking about her work in the Department of Magical Education - she’s been there for barely just over a year and is, from what Draco gathers via eavesdropping, practically running the whole place herself already, to no one’s surprise - and of course, Potter and Weasley excitedly sharing details about their Auror training which probably no one should be hearing. Draco rolls his eyes at all of it, looks at the clock where Bill’s hand is firmly set on “Traveling,” as it has been for twenty minutes now, and wanders into the kitchen where it’s quieter, where it’s just Molly fussing over the stove. 

“Anything I can do?” he asks politely. She turns and smiles at him, assures him that there’s nothing, but he sits down at the table anyway, pulls a book from his bag and starts reading. It’s on wand design, this one, how it can determine the success of a person’s magic, and Draco is halfway through and still not sure yet if he thinks it’s a load of shit, but he’s certainly leaning that way. He takes notes, though, just in case. 

“What’s that you’re reading, dear?” Molly asks after a few minutes. He looks up and sees her at the sink, looking at him with a pleasant curiosity. 

“Oh,” he says, unable to keep the mild surprise from his tone. “It’s about wand design, its effect on the wand’s magic, and all.”

“Oh, yes,” Molly says. “George mentioned you’re interested in wandlore.” Draco’s chest clenches in needless panic for a moment, cold all over with horror that George might’ve told his family about Draco’s magic being gone, until Molly continues, “A fascinating subject, that is. Very mysterious, of course. Anything worthwhile in that book?” Draco laughs, nerves relieved.

“I suppose it depends,” he says. “Do you think there’s any substance to--let’s see,” he looks down at the book again, scanning the page for the most outrageous example he can find, “to the idea of a triangular wand tip being a hindrance to charms work?” She scoffs.

“Sounds worse than an old wive’s tale,” says Molly, who, Draco knows, believes about three dozen old wive’s tales herself. He laughs again, and a burst of loud welcomes sounds from the living room, messily announcing Bill and Fleur’s arrival. “That’ll be Bill,” Molly mutters, just as Bill breezes into the room to hug his mother, clapping Draco on the shoulder on his way, and within minutes, the table outside is set and food is being served among the whole family. 

Everything is quite normal, except for the ways it isn’t - Charlie and Ginny’s presences, the significant glances that Bill and Fleur keep exchanging right next to him. It’s throwing Draco off, pecking at at his anxiety again, making him pick at his food rather than eat it. George keeps nudging Draco’s knee with his own, a silent question, reassurance. Draco wants so badly to take George’s hand and Disapparate from here, settle his nerves once and for all today, but he nurses a butterbeer instead, grateful for every surrounding distraction from his quietness. After dinner, before pudding, Bill stands, and Draco’s anxiety scurries quickly up to cling to his top ribs, his hands trembling intensely again, even as Bill grins down at Fleur, who’s returning his cheery gaze.

“You might be wondering why I asked _all_ of you to make sure to be here tonight,” Bill says.

“Ordered, more like,” Charlie says, under his breath but loudly still, to a small chorus of chuckles. Bill rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, well, I had good reason,” he says. He looks down at Fleur again and, smiling, never taking his eyes off her admiring face, announces, “Fleur and I are going to have a baby.”

A split second’s pause of silence and then a sudden grand explosion of celebratory noise envelopes the very air around Draco. He manages to get out a single, “Congratulations!” to Fleur just before a mass of excited Weasleys descend on her and Bill, embracing them, asking a hundred questions about the due date and how long they’ve known, and, in Molly’s case, weeping. Charlie summons a jug of firewhiskey from somewhere and pours drinks for everyone except Fleur, begins a round of toasts that must go on for three full minutes, each Weasley and Potter and Granger passing them back and forth around the table, and somewhere in the middle of it, when George elbows him and he realizes that it’s his turn, he raises his glass and says, “To mountains that do not give birth to a mouse.” It makes Fleur throw back her head in delighted laughter, which gets swallowed up immediately thereafter by more toasting and cheering. Draco takes the opportunity to extricate himself from the crowd, and he’s surprised that George follows him.

“D’you want to go?” George asks. Draco raises his eyebrows.

“Do you?” Draco says, studying George’ face as they walk away from the table toward the house. George clears his throat.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, glancing back over his shoulder at the celebration. “Yeah, I’ll just...I’ll tell them I got sick or something. I’ll send them a big gift tomorrow, or...Yeah, let’s go.”

“Alright,” Draco says, nodding. He picks up his book and bag in the kitchen and he and George set out through the front door, walking up the hill. George reaches out to hold Draco’s hand and leads him down into the Muggle village for the first time. Truth be told, it’s a boring little town, now lit only by street lamps under the black sky. They walk in silence for several minutes, and finally Draco says quietly, “Do you want to talk?”

“I’m happy for them,” George says immediately, like the words have been waiting to tumble from his mouth. “I am. You know I am.”

“I know you are,” Draco confirms, squeezing George’s hand.

“I am,” George says again. “I just...When Fred died, I just thought, you know, we were down one Weasley, and that was it. It never even occurred to me that, like, babies would be born, and he’d be--ugh, not replaced.” George huffs, rolls his eyes at himself. 

“I know that’s not what you mean,” Draco says, rubbing his thumb across George’s palm. George nods. 

“Thank you,” he says, a bit indulgently. Draco set these guidelines for them at the start, based on advice from Meriweather on communication. George pretends he only follows it because he thinks it’s cute for Draco to care so much about that sort of thing, but Draco knows that George appreciates what it does for them, together and individually. George clears his throat again, and when he starts speaking once more, his voice sounds choked. “I just keep forgetting that time hasn’t stopped for everyone else. Everyone is still moving on, making new families, new Weasleys. I’m stuck, as ever.”

“Is that how you feel with me?” Draco asks softly. George stops walking, looks at Draco.

“No,” George says, voice so certain it’s soothing. “No, with you, it’s like I’m….” He rolls his eyes again. “Merlin, this sounds stupid. But when I’m with you, it’s like there’s no timeline at all. Like we’re outside it. We can’t be stuck if it’s not there.”

“Hmm. That only sounds a _little_ stupid,” Draco says, smiling, and George returns it with his own. “Even if we are stuck, I don’t think I mind it, being stuck in time with you.” 

“Now who sounds a little stupid?” George says, one eyebrow raised. 

“I sound _romantic_ , you twat,” Draco says, as George kisses him quiet under a street light.


	7. Chapter 7

“Oh, Charlie Weasley says, ‘Thank you,’” Draco says at lunch a couple of days later. Blaise freezes, looks up from his stew at Draco.

“When did you speak to Charlie Weasley?” he asks smoothly. Draco shrugs.

“He said you Apparated into his dragon sanctuary to alert him to the Battle of Hogwarts,” he says, ignoring Blaise’s question. “How’d you even know--”

“There’s only one dragon sanctuary in Romania,” Blaise says, sitting back in his chair, eyes still on Draco’s face, as if he’ll find answers there. “I heard Daphne mention it once or twice. She loves dragons, remember? Strange girl. Anyway, Slughorn said he knew that Weasley worked with dragons in Romania, so I figured that had to be the place. It was just luck that I Apparated right outside his tent.”

There's a long stretch of silence wherein Draco and Blaise simply look at one another, and finally Draco says, “You haven't told me anything about what you did that night.” Blaise’s jaw clenches, and for a moment Draco thinks that he’s brought on an argument, but then Blaise relaxes. Draco watches, somewhat surprised, as Blaise’s shoulders slump by just a fraction, as tension drains from his face. Blaise is dropping his entire controlled exterior, readying to expose the truth, his own vulnerability, and in public, no less. For Draco. 

“I didn't want to talk about that night,” Blaise says quietly. “Not for a long time. I wasn't ready.” He looks down at his plate. “I had to dose myself with a drop of Veritaserum just to be able to testify for you in front of the Wizengamot, even knowing it was essentially a mock trial. What I told you, afterward, citing my Unspeakable apprenticeship as a reason why I needed distance from you was only half the truth. The other half was that I couldn't look at you without thinking of that night, and I just….” Blaise swallows. “I couldn't think about that night.”

“Blaise,” Draco says, and Blaise looks up at him again.

“It was such a hard decision to make, and the truth is that you were the only reason I made it,” Blaise says. “I could've just fled, Disapparated to whatever safe place they were taking everyone else. But I was in that queue at the Hog’s Head, and I looked around and didn't see you, or Crabbe or Goyle, and I knew what you were doing.” Draco is stunned to see Blaise’s eyes shining with tears. “And I just...stepped out of the queue. And Pansy followed me, and so did Daphne, and Tracey, and Millie. I’m certain we all looked lost. I know it's how we felt.” He clears his throat, blinks rapidly before continuing. 

“Slughorn saw us, and I think that's when he decided to fight, to get reinforcements first, be smart about it. Pansy was crying, and I told her to stay there, watch over the kids as they went to safety, which turned out well, because that damn Hufflepuff Smith--” Blaise’s fist clenches on the table next to his fork. “Pansy’s never quite told me the whole story. Suffice it to say the last group of children got stuck at the Hog’s Head, and Pansy was the only one there to be with them, keep them calm until morning.”

“Shit,” Draco breathes. Blaise’s mouth quirks up.

“Yeah,” he says. “The rest of us got our assignments from Slughorn, where to go to sound the alarm, who to recruit for the fight. And when we returned with everyone, we just ran toward the school, hoped it was still worth a damn. I realized, as I was running, that I could take or leave the school, because really, I just wanted to find you, see that you were safe.” He shakes his head, looks down again, pulls a derisive expression. 

“You know that I always thought the war was so fucking stupid. I know it was like, the ultimate fight for the wizarding world’s soul, or whatever, but I never gave a fuck about it. I still don't. But you….” Blaise says, glancing at Draco. He sighs. “I knew that if--if you died in there, and I could've done something, anything, to prevent it...I knew I'd carry that with me.” He raises an eyebrow. “You know how much I hate when my conscience acts up.” Draco smiles.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I hope you also know that I love you. You’re my brother - extreme difference in skin color be damned, and all the handjobs and blowjobs in fifth year notwithstanding,” Blaise adds with a grimace. “I won't die for you, or anyone else on this earth, but I would kill for you. And I’ve always known that, but it was never tested before. All of a sudden, I was ready to, in the school that night. Scared the hell out of me, to be honest. Afterward, I just needed to be alone, deal with what I saw, what I learned I was capable of being.”

“That's why you never wrote,” Draco says. Blaise nods.

“I wanted to, on occasion. But what could I even say?” he says, looking more openly remorseful than Draco has ever seen. “Besides, as you know, I assumed that you and Pansy were in contact. If I’d known you were so terribly lonely that you’d befriend a Weasley, I might have put my own troubles aside to help you.”

“Ha ha,” Draco says with a roll of his eyes.

“I know, I know,” Blaise says wryly, returning the eye roll, “he isn't _that bad_ , allegedly.” Then Draco watches his best friend put himself back together, collect the leaked secrets with his eyes, tightly contain his body, right his facial expression into practiced controlled blankness. It's truly a marvel to witness, and even Draco - who knew Blaise long before he even learned how to stitch himself up like that - gets to see it so rarely that he considers it a gift. 

“On a more amusing and somewhat related note,” Blaise says then, cool of voice, “did you hear about the Auror Department? They’ve begun a recruitment campaign targeted at Slytherins. All the posters say the department needs the skills and mindset found in our house.” Draco’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Are you serious?” he asks, a grin growing wider on his face by the second.

“Deadly so,” Blaise says, returning to the rest of his stew. “I’ve passed the word on to Tracey and Millie. They seemed rather keen on it once they stopped laughing.”

“Oh, that is _brilliant_ ,” Draco says, losing himself in his own laughter. Blaise rolls his eyes again.

“I’m going to steal your bread while you can't put up a fight,” he declares, taking aim with his fork at Draco’s plate. Draco gladly lets him.

\---

Draco wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, bolting upright, conscious of nothing but the images lingering in his head and his own wailing voice. When he finally comes around to reality - he doesn’t even know how long it’s been - it’s to George’s arms wrapped tight around him, George’s mouth pressed to his temple, George’s hand in his hair. 

“You’re alright, you’re alright,” George whispers, over and over, holding Draco’s head to his chest. “It’s over, the war’s over. You’re safe. Your parents are safe. It’s alright.” Draco’s whole body shakes as he tries to regain control of his breathing. He grips at George’s arm across his chest, digging his fingernails into George’s skin.

“Don’t let me go,” Draco gasps, barely aware of his words. He’s just desperate for this, to be grounded, to be steadied. It’s never been like this before, when he would wake up alone. It’s so much better like this. “Please, please, don’t let go.” 

“I won’t, I won’t, I promise,” George says softly. Draco can feel wetness from George’s face on his skin and thinks the unlikely thought that George is crying, but it slips from his mind as quickly as it forms. “I won’t let anyone hurt you like that again. Never. I promise, I promise.” Draco knows, distantly, that it’s an outrageous promise to make, especially since they’ve only been together like this for just over a month, but he feels, perhaps impossibly, like it’s true, that he can trust it, that George will protect him. The notion settles him, deep in his bones, in his blood, and ten minutes later he’s asleep again.

\---

“Does George make you feel happy?” Meriweather asks. Draco can’t help a small smile.

“Yes,” he says, looking at his drumming fingers on the arm of the chair. “Hmm. It’s more than that, though. I feel...safe. With him. And not just physically, I mean - he makes me feel like...like I can tell him the worst about me and somehow he won’t think the worst of me.” He looks up at Meriweather, sees her pleased expression.

“It sounds like you really trust him,” she says. “That’s a big deal for you, Draco. How many people have you trusted like that over your life?” Draco doesn’t even have to pause to count.

“Five before him,” he says. “Although, I mean, Snape’s dead, so. Never more than five at a time, apparently.” He frowns. “Is that--that sounds like a small number.” Meriweather taps the feather of her quill against her chin.

“Not necessarily,” she says. “Others have more, some less. It all depends on what you need and what you want.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Draco says skeptically.

“Not necessarily,” Meriweather says again. Draco rolls his eyes. “Do you feel fulfilled by the relationships in your life?” Draco actually decides to give that some thought, and after a few moments, he nods. “And do you find yourself wanting any additional meaningful relationships?” Draco makes a face.

“Why would I?” he asks. Meriweather snorts.

“I wouldn’t worry if I were you, then,” she says. “You are keeping your options open, though, right?” Draco narrows his eyes.

“Why?” he drawls, raising an eyebrow. “What are you on about, Meriweather?” She puts on an innocent face so reminiscent of Pansy’s that it hits him with a pang how much he’s been missing Pansy as she’s on her trek across East Asia with Luna Lovegood.

“Only that it sounds like you might also be becoming real friends with a couple of George’s brothers,” Meriweather says. Draco groans, dropping his head so that it hits the back of the chair with a thump.

“How dare you put such a terrible curse on me, you vile knave?” he says dryly, scoffing. He smiles, though, when Meriweather laughs.

\---

After dinner one Thursday evening, Lucius invites George up to his room of collectibles. It’s said just like that, too, in a rather ominous tone that makes Draco scrape his fork over the plate in a screech and makes Narcissa raise her left eyebrow and set down her wine glass solely to give her husband a focused, slow blink. Lucius looks at her, but before he can clear his own confusion from his face, George coughs and says, “It’s not full of, like, people, right?” Lucius turns to look at him, alarmed by the question. George cracks a nervous smile. “I mean, you don’t collect, you know, humans, do you?” 

“Oh!” Lucius says, realizing their reactions and letting out a little burst of laughter. “No, no, I don’t collect humans.”

“Jesus,” Draco mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. When his father and George leave the room, his mother gives him a look.

“Perhaps you should--” she starts.

“I’m on it,” Draco says, folding his cloth napkin and placing it on the table next to his clean plate before getting to his feet. He walks behind his mother’s chair and squeezes her shoulders as he passes, takes a moment to lean over to refill her wine glass and give her a quick kiss on her temple on his way out of the dining room. By the time he reaches his father’s collectibles study, George is prodding at a trio of cursed ancient skulls set on top of a grand glass display case.

“Father, could you not have started him with something slightly less dangerous than the No Evil skulls?” Draco asks with a longsuffering tone as he leans against the wall beside the enormous display shelf of potions and crosses his arms. George glances back at him with a grin that falters as he looks Draco up and down, which Draco would enjoy very much if his father weren’t _right there_ , and also if the distraction didn’t nearly get George’s hand bitten by the Speak skull.

“Yes, that one’s quite temperamental,” says Lucius - whose focus, thankfully, was elsewhere while George was giving Draco an appreciative once over - as George takes a long step away from the offending skull, examining his hand. “Speak No Evil demands more attention than See and Hear.” Lucius gestures to the middle skull, and Draco and George watch its empty eye sockets begin to bleed.

“Merlin,” George says. He bends down to get a better look, but Lucius stops him suddenly with the head of the snake atop his walking stick pressed to George’s shoulder.

“The blood spits if you get too close,” he says, in response to George’s questioning look. George grimaces and nods toward the final skull.

“And that one? What’s a Hear No Evil skull do without ears?” George asks. Draco pushes off the wall and approaches the display, stands beside George.

“You might want to cover yours,” he says, placing his hands over his own ears. George raises his eyebrows and flattens his palm over his ear, leaving the hole on the left side of his head exposed. Draco rolls his eyes and nods at his father, who casts a quick spell on himself to protect his hearing before poking very gently at the back of the third skull. Instantly, a terrible shrill scream, like that of a banshee, emits from the skull at piercing volume, the force of the sound and its Dark magic creating thick navy blue smoke that billows out furiously from either side where the ears would be if the bones were to gain flesh. George cringes and steps back, bumping into Draco, who shouts, “Shut it up!” twice before his father hears him and taps the skull again, silencing it. 

“Oh, those are _brilliant_ ,” George says delightedly, crouching to get eye level with the skulls while still keeping his distance. “No doubt there’s a market for these. Replicas, obviously. Miniature sizes, too, maybe. Novelty gifts.”

“Without the deadly curse, to be sure,” Draco adds dryly.

“Yeah, of course,” George says, distracted and waving his hand. Then he frowns. “The magic would be tricky….”

“Hmm,” Lucius hums. Draco glances over to see a familiar expression on his father’s face - the same smug, haughty look he gets for a moment just before delivering manipulative flattery. Draco’s seen it in just about every encounter he’s witnessed between his father and anyone in a position of power. It’s startling to see it now, in an interaction with a Weasley, even tapered as it is by a vaguely affectionate twinkle in his gray eyes. “But of course, bold Gryffindors such as yourself would never decline a challenge,” Draco’s father says, punctuating his statement with a practiced appraisal of his fingernails before he turns that gaze on George, who's already shot up to his feet again. 

“I’m not declining--” he cuts himself off, though, narrowing his eyes at Lucius for just a second more. An expression of realization dawns on his face. He turns his head to look at Draco and says, somewhat amused, “Now I see where you get it from. Uncanny, really.”

“Manipulation of others is the real key to actual power without any of the risk,” Draco says with a shrug, the words echoing across his childhood. “Isn't that right, Father?” His father nods with a little singsong hum.

“Or all of the work,” Lucius adds. George looks between the two Malfoys and huffs out a laugh.

“You know what? Two years ago, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate that as a life strategy worth anything, but...I get it now.” George shrugs, rolls his eyes good-naturedly at Draco as he turns around to face the wall of potions. “What’s this blue bubbly one for?”

\---

Draco’s got George in his bed, under him, as he grinds his hips against George’s, swallowing the sweet high-pitched hums that escape George’s mouth. He forgot, until a few weeks ago, how much he loved this: bending low over a man and kissing him, feeling strong hands grip tight at his hips as he rolls them down, resting his own palm over the firm chest below him and digging his fingers in when he finally gives himself over to the pleasure of it. He and Blaise used to do this in fifth year, alone in their dormitory with the curtains pulled around whichever one of their beds they were in at the time, equally an escape from the enduring pressure of exams and an exploration of what they wanted, what they liked. Draco is rather thrilled to find that he likes it even better with George, not least because, when he gets George worked up enough, George growls and reaches a hand between them, wraps it around both their dicks and works them together, desperate long strokes until they come, usually Draco first, and then George as Draco slumps against him, lazily kissing his neck.

It’s heading that way again now. Draco can tell by the way George’s hands flex on his hips and the quickness of his breath. It wouldn’t be bad - it’s never bad, it’s always so unbelievably good, so good that Draco could swear his brain turns to liquid every time George so much as gives him a hungry look. But he wants something else today, something more, something other than touch, wants to taste, wants to fold himself up at the foot of the bed and take George’s dick in his mouth, feel it twitch and pulse on his tongue. 

So he does. With a last biting kiss, Draco crawls down George’s body, dragging his open mouth on the way, licking tiny beads of sweat from warm freckled skin, letting his teeth graze at George’s nipple and the subtle dip of his pelvis. George breathes out Draco’s name, groans long and rough when he realizes what Draco is about to do, settles his hands on Draco’s shoulders. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Draco nods, takes George’s cock in his hand, licks his lips.

“Tell me if I do something wrong,” Draco says, and George’s dubious chuckle gets choked off when Draco licks a wide stripe along the full length of him. George tightens his grip on Draco’s shoulders when Draco sucks the sensitive head of George’s dick into his mouth, swears and gasps and shudders as Draco takes him deeper. Draco moans at the weight of George’s cock on his tongue, closes his eyes to it, wants to memorize it, lock it away in his mind. He gets his hand around the base, the inches that won’t fit in his mouth - not yet, but Merlin, he wants to learn, wants to be able to take George to the back of his throat one day - and strokes up so that his fist meets his lips, strokes down as he drags his mouth up to the tip, and back again. Establishing a rhythm is easy enough with his eyes closed like this, narrowing his focus, and when George whines and thrusts his hips up, threatening to throw it all off balance, Draco movements never falter, but he flattens his free hand just above George’s hip, presses down hard until George stammers out an apology, a promise to control himself. Draco hums, satisfied, and George whines again, one hand flailing away from Draco’s shoulder and fisting in the bedsheet beside him.

“I knew you’d be good at this,” George says between gasps and groans. “Fuck, I knew you’d be so good at this, just from looking at you, _fuck_.” Draco opens his eyes and looks up the taut, broad line of George’s body to find George looking down at him, eyes wide, mouth trembling in reverence. George lets out a weak whimper and bites his lip, digs his fingernails harder into Draco’s skin. Draco moans at that, at the knowledge that there will be little half-moon marks on his shoulder after this, and George swears again at the vibrations from Draco’s mouth. Draco never thought about it, really, before George, the idea of being marked like this by someone, but it’s consumed him since their first kiss, images of faint purple bruises on his hips and angry red spots along his neck and collarbone. 

“Draco, Draco,” George rasps out, “I’m--I can’t--” He moves his hand to Draco’s hair, twists it and tugs, the spark of sudden pleasure of it making Draco’s eyelids flutter closed. “Please, Draco, I’m going to come.” Draco opens his eyes again, meets George’s, hopes he’s getting his point across and won’t have to pull off to actually say it, but George seems to get it, shudders and nods frantically as he realizes. “Okay, okay, I--I’m--” Draco watches George throw his head back against the pillow, exposing his throat and the half a dozen marks scattered over the skin left from Draco’s persistent mouth over the past few days. He observes the jerky movements of George’s muscles flexing and relaxing, feels George pulling harder at his hair, and understands, whimpers in anticipation. 

George comes with a low scream, a sweet, now-familiar cry of Draco’s name, and Draco swallows it down with an appreciative, thankful groan. He slows his strokes to a stop, keeps his mouth still around George’s cock, laves at the underside and sucks at the tip as George’s grip in his hair loosens, works George through every aftershock until George nudges at Draco’s shoulder, breathes out a broken plea in a wrecked voice. Draco pulls off a bit reluctantly, rests his forehead against George’s thigh and breathes deeply, closes and opens his mouth a few times just to feel the pleasant ache in his jaw. George runs his fingers gently through Draco’s hair as they both catch their breath, and Draco shudders at the softness of it, the intimacy, and realizes suddenly how hard his own cock is, has been this whole time. He pushes himself up enough to glance down, gasps at the deep red color, the drops of pre-come smeared across the sheets under him. 

“Want my help with that?” George asks, and Draco has to squeeze his eyes shut against the punch of his desire, the shaky groan that escapes his throat.

“Please,” he says, his voice rough. He feels George’s hands on his arms, hauling him up and resting him back on the bed. He kisses him, gentle and sweet, before following Draco’s lead, trailing down Draco’s body with a promise in his eyes. Draco’s close already, desperate for release, so he barely even registers the sensation of George’s tongue before he’s coming. George swallows and sucks Draco clean, then laughs softly against Draco’s stomach and says, “I assure you, I’m very skilled. Next time, whenever you want it, I’ll prove it to you.” 

Next time turns out to be fifteen minutes later, and Draco is delighted to learn that George’s mouth is positively wicked.

\---

Percy comes into the shop on Halloween, looks around, approaches the sales counter and hovers for a few moments, and says, as Draco’s finishing a transaction with a customer, “Er, Malfoy, hi. Is George around?”

“He just left to make a Gringotts run,” Draco says. 

“Ah,” says Percy. “Right. Halloween must be a busy day for you here.” Draco nods.

“It’s the few days before, really. Mail orders from Hogwarts.”

“That makes sense,” Percy says, a little smile forming on his face. Draco narrows his eyes.

“So you’ve relaxed some, then,” he says. Percy’s face reddens a bit, but he shrugs still.

“I suppose I simply gained some perspective,” Percy says. Draco nods slowly. He’s been thinking for about a month that Percy doesn’t mind him, maybe even kind of likes him, as long as Arthur isn't looking. Now seems like a good time to test the theory.

“All that power and prestige you were going for just doesn’t matter to you anymore?” he asks quietly, in a tone that he hopes isn’t too blunt. Percy goes red again. He seems properly ashamed of who he once was. It makes Draco feel seen, uneasy.

“It’s not quite that, I don’t think,” Percy says, glancing down at his shoes. “I still care about my career and my future. My reputation still matters to me.” 

“That’s unfortunate,” Draco says dryly. Percy raises his eyebrows. “Probably,” Draco adds, and Percy barks out precisely one small laugh.

“My upward momentum has certainly slowed, that’s true,” he says. He gives Draco a thoughtful look that makes Draco squirm. “I don’t exactly mind it, though. Everything that happened...It taught me what’s most important. Surely you can relate.” Draco is quiet for a moment, weighing his options. He’s not exactly eager to share private information with a Weasley who’s not George, especially one who still seems to think he needs to ingratiate himself to their father, but, well, he can use another Weasley in his corner, even if he’s only there secretly.

“You could say that, yes,” Draco admits. Then, perhaps recklessly, he says, “You don’t have to worry about me telling anyone about that lunch, you know.” Percy blanches, but clenches his jaw, sticks out his chin proudly.

“Really?” he asks. “You’re not holding onto it until it’s beneficial for you to use?” Draco barely stops himself from rolling his eyes.

“A fair enough assumption,” he says. “Under normal circumstances, yes, I would be. It’s vital to have information like that to wield.” Percy opens his mouth, enraged, but Draco continues. “We don’t find ourselves under normal circumstances, though, do we? I have no interest in doing anything that would hurt George, or your mother, or Bill and Fleur and Charlie, so I’m just doing what I assume you’ve been doing and pretending it never happened.” 

Draco watches the anger drain quickly from Percy’s face. It takes several moments, but finally Percy says, “You genuinely do care about George, then?” Draco blinks, tries to replay what he just said, terrified suddenly that he let something slip.

“I--” he starts, but Percy cuts him off.

“If you’re putting his happiness before yours, then you really must consider him a true friend,” he says cautiously. Draco’s anxiety ebbs.

“Yes,” he says with an annoyed affectation, like this is a point he’s been trying to prove to the Weasleys for months, which isn’t entirely untrue. Percy hums, nods, and is about to say something else when George enters the shop.

“They let you out of the office this early, Perce?” he asks, pulling Percy in for a too-tight hug. When he lets go, Percy’s left with ruffled hair and crooked glasses.

“I took the rest of the afternoon off,” Percy says, righting his spectacles and blushing a bit. He glances briefly at Draco before saying, “I was wondering if you might have anything to liven up the office tomorrow, actually.” George raises his eyebrows.

“Well, we had a special Halloween collection that just sold out yesterday,” he says. “I’m afraid your scheduling’s off, mate.”

“It’s perfect,” Draco says, and the Weasleys both look at him. He shrugs. “Nobody will be expecting it the day _after_ Halloween, right, Percy?” Percy gives him a quick, subtle nod before turning back to George, who’s looking between his brother and Draco, impressed and intrigued.

“Precisely,” Percy says. “Now, what’ve you got left?”

\---

In what is undoubtedly the most embarrassing development in all of this, Draco realizes on the first chilly day in November that he has a daily favorite freckle of George's. 

Yesterday it was the one sitting high on his left cheekbone. The day before it was a tiny one on his earlobe. Last Wednesday it was the brown one on his right inner thigh. Today it's one of the little quartet just under his left eyebrow - the second one, to be specific. 

He maps them out each and every time he gets to look at George for longer than a minute, feast his eyes on George's body. Sometimes he takes a quill to them, connecting them with ink, forming constellations and naming them, making George laugh with it. Sometimes he tries to count them, mentally demarcates zones of George's skin and attempts a count for each zone. Sometimes he kisses a few, grazes them with his fingertips, until George gets bothered enough to pull him close and kiss him hungrily, at which point everything is forgotten besides George’s mouth.

They’re lying in bed on a Saturday night, George stretched out on his back with his right arm bent back behind his head, Draco on his side to George’s left, propped up on his elbow and trailing his fingers across the freckles dispersed over George’s chest. He thinks he might like these quiet moments best, just the two of them at Spinner’s End, existing in the same small space. 

“You can hear a bit on this side, though, can’t you?” Draco asks, continuing an earlier conversation that got set aside for dinner. George tilts his head toward Draco and smiles.

“Only when it’s right on,” he says. “I only heard you just then with my ear, but sounds that are like, right next to the hole, I can manage those.” Draco nods.

“So I should be sure to whisper any secrets in this direction, then,” he says, smirking. George raises his eyebrows.

“What kind of secrets might those be?” George asks. Draco frowns, glances down.

“The kind I want to say out loud but don’t want you to know yet,” he says softly. He presses his hand to over George’s heart, feels the thumping there under his palm. George circles Draco’s wrist with his hand. 

“You’re very good at compartmentalizing, do you know that? Better than anyone I’ve ever met, probably.” 

“I learned from the best,” Draco says, pulling an odd face.

“Your parents?” George asks quietly. 

“Them, yeah, and Snape,” Draco says, adding bitterly, “Snape was the best of all of us, it turns out.”

“Hmm,” says George. Draco stares at his hand on George’s chest for several long moments, rising and falling with George’s breathing, and suddenly realizes--

_His hand has stopped shaking._

He sits up abruptly, holding his hands out in front of him, his eyes wide. He turns his hands over, flattens them horizontally in the air in front of him, and sees only stillness. 

“Draco?” George asks, sitting up on his elbows. “Are you alright?”

“My hands don’t shake,” Draco says in a whisper. “My hands have stopped shaking. Look at them!”

“Yeah, I noticed about a week ago,” George says kindly, smiling. “I would’ve mentioned it, but I thought you already knew.” Draco shakes his head, still staring at his hands, breathing hard, a grin slowly growing on his face. After another minute, he looks at George, meets his eyes. Draco all but lunges forward, cups either side of George’s face in his hands - his still, calm hands - and kisses him.

\---

It’s been a hard day, and Meriweather pulled out a bit of unpleasantness from him that he forgot was even unpleasant, and it weighed on him all through the dinner that he barely ate - alone, while George was out with Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan - and it stayed stuck to his skin even after his third shower of the day. Now he sits on the bed, knees drawn up to his chest, as George brushes his teeth in the bathroom and chats away, with some muffled difficulty, about how Jordan and Johnson seem to be afraid of being alone together these days and what that obviously means. Draco says nothing, just lets George talk, and grinds his teeth. Minutes later, George is settling into bed next to Draco, and Draco’s heart feels heavy.

“Sorry I’ve been babbling on,” George says quietly as he kisses Draco on the cheek. “I missed you at dinner. Are you alright, babe? You look a bit peaky.”

“Rough day,” Draco mumbles. 

“Your appointment with Meriweather, you mean?” George asks, lying down and brushing at Draco’s thigh with his knuckles. Draco nods. “Do you want to talk about it?” Draco doesn’t move except to hug his knees closer. He doesn’t know how long he remains silent, but finally he gives a little sigh.

“Can you put out the lamps?” he asks, voice hoarse. “I’m more comfortable talking in the dark.” 

After a moment, George says, “Of course,” and with a wave of his wand, all light in the room vanishes. Draco pretends he doesn’t feel ill, takes a deep breath.

“I think you should know that I wouldn’t change anything,” he says into the blackness, trying to forget he’s talking to George. “I would still make the same choices. I’d still take the Dark Mark. I don’t regret any of it, except hesitating on the Tower. If I could do it all again, then it would all be the same except for that moment.” He rubs hard at his ankle, rests his chin on his knees, blinks against a stinging in his eyes. He feels so small. “I’m not proud of it, I don’t think. But that’s just what it is. That’s who I am.” He turns his head toward George. Even in the darkness, he can still make out the outline of George’s body. It’s as comforting as it is worrying. “I don’t want you to start thinking that I’m not that person when I’m exactly the same.” He swallows, closes his eyes. “I’m still the same.”

“Draco,” George says without even the briefest hesitation, “I don’t expect you to be anything other than who you are.” He places his hand on Draco’s back, glides gentle fingers up and down Draco’s spine. “I don’t need anything else from you. Whatever you are - whatever you think you should be but aren’t - you’re who I want.” Draco bites his lip and turns further toward George.

“Promise?” he asks, knowing well how pathetic he sounds and not caring. He sees George wave his hand and a soft light erupts from the tip of George’s wand on the bedside table, bright enough to reveal to him George’s face. He looks earnest, almost desperate, as he sits up fully, slides his fingers up to rest at the back of Draco’s neck.

“Promise,” he says. Draco lets out a tragic, shaky breath, and George presses a kiss to his shoulder. “I mean it when I say I won’t let anyone hurt you like that again, and I’m including yourself in the ‘anyone.’” A sad huff of laughter escapes Draco’s lips.

“That’s probably a good policy,” he says quietly, closing his eyes as George begins rubbing at his neck, squeezing out some of the tension making its home there.

\---

It's Draco’s mother's birthday and it's just the three of them at dinner - Draco and his parents - plus George. 

His mother specifically requested that Draco invite him, said she finds him entertaining, fascinating. “He's like a runes translation,” she said thoughtfully, “but the key isn't quite complete.”

“An arithmancy problem without the base gematria theory,” Draco’s father supplied, not even looking up from _The Sunday Prophet_.

“This is all very poetic for a description of a Weasley,” Draco said with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

“Well, like you said, he is obviously the best one,” his mother said, and that was that.

So it's four of them at dinner then, in the grand dining room, the one they use for special occasions and impressive guests. There are decorations which manage to be both classy and ornate, all in black and ice blue - her favorite color, that of her eyes - and plates of roast duck with black truffle cream and a side of aloo gobi, which is of particular interest to George. 

“You lot eat quite a bit of Asian food,” he says. “Not exactly what I’d ever expect from a great English family like yours.”

“You can thank Auntie Shafiq for that,” Draco’s mother says happily. George blinks at her.

“Who's Auntie Shafiq?” he asks, then looks at Draco. “Wait, you’ve mentioned her before, yeah?”

“She's of the Sacred Twenty-Eight,” Draco says, knowing full well that George will have no idea what that means. George does, indeed, give him a blank look. Draco sighs dramatically, but he’s really very excited. It's so rare that he gets to tell this story. “In the 1930s, Cantankerous Nott--”

“You can't prove that,” Lucius says.

“--published a collection of names of the wizard families in Britain with the purest blood,” Draco continues. George looks rather horrified.

“You call that sacred?” he says, but Draco barrels onward, eager to avoid anything akin to an argument between his parents and George.

“Twenty-eight families made the cut. Abbott, Avery, Black--” he nods at his mother, who simultaneously raises a glass and rolls her eyes, herself exhausted with her family since childhood, “--Bulstrode, Burke, Carrow, Crouch, Fawley, Flint--” George snorts, “--Gaunt, Greengrass, Lestrange, Longbottom, Macmillan, Malfoy--” he and his father perform a delicate, haughty movement with their hands, as if presenting themselves for applause, and George's eyes go wider than Draco’s ever seen them, his mouth open in an awkward, skeptical pose, “--Nott, Ollivander, Parkinson, Prewett--”

“Oh!” George says, surprised. “That's my mum’s family.”

“--Rosier, Rowle, Selwyn, Shacklebolt, Shafiq, Slughorn, Travers, Weasley, and Yaxley,” Draco finishes, quite pleased with himself for remembering a list he was forced to commit to memory at age six.

“Wow,” George says, visibly cringing. “Any way we could opt out of that list?”

“Most people don't know of it,” Narcissa says reassuringly, “but my parents swore by it. And when I was a child, they had their hands full with my sister--” she pauses and frowns before correcting herself, “-- _sisters_. Andromeda was just as obnoxious as Bellatrix, and they were always fighting with each other.” 

She takes a long sip of wine as Draco struggles to contain his shock. His mother rarely ever spoke of her sisters throughout his life - until he was eleven years old, Draco thought she was an only child like his father, like him - and even less of Andromeda, the cast out, erased from photo albums and family trees as if she never even existed. Across the table, Lucius is staring wide-eyed down at his plate, like his wife has said something supremely uncouth, revealed a long-buried family secret in front of company that they're trying to impress. George is the only one who is unfazed, but judging by the look he gives Draco, he still recognizes the sudden tension at the table.

“In any case,” Narcissa continues, and Draco sees his father relax, go back to finishing the last of the roasted duck breast on his plate, “they determined that I needed a nanny, and would only choose one from a Sacred Twenty-Eight family. Obviously some were automatically out of the question to even consider - Weasleys and Prewetts included - but they didn't know that Auntie Shafiq never really cared very much about blood status either, so they hired her.” She tilts her head and smiles at George. 

“She was only twenty-four and to me, she was the absolute _height_ of cool. I told her a few months into the arrangement that I would rather her be my cousin than, well, the ones I got by blood, and she said that I should call her Auntie instead - she's Bengali - which drove my real Aunt Walburga into a rage, which I loved,” Narcissa says with a mischievous raise of her eyebrow. 

“She never married or had children of her own - it's a real shame that her line is going to die out - so when Draco was born, we didn't require a nanny, but she more or less became his Auntie as well.” She gives a sly look to Lucius, who is already sighing and rolling his eyes. “It was fairly good of her, considering she never cared for Draco's father.”

“I never did a single offensive thing to the woman,” Lucius says, annoyed. “As a matter of fact, I went out of my way to be courteous and kind to her because I knew how important she was to you and I wanted very desperately to have her approval, and yet she hated me. From the very start!” 

“Yes, she did think you were quite bad for me,” Draco’s mother says, thoroughly amused as she always is by Lucius and Auntie Shafiq’s complaints about one another. “She didn’t especially like Snape, either.”

“It was Death Eaters she didn’t like, Mother,” Draco says, as if the answer is obvious. “She was always warning me to be careful of my sympathies. The last time I saw her was the summer after the Triwizard Tournament, and she told me she sensed I was troubled and made me drink fourteen cups of chai - I kept count - while she lectured me about never taking the Dark Mark.” He frowns, a sad realization hitting him. “She’s probably very disappointed in me.”

“Nonsense, Draco, she’s always loved you dearly,” his mother says, a bit too quickly to be convincing. 

“Regardless,” Draco says, clearing his throat and turning to George, “Auntie Shafiq never let me get away with anything and she put terribly inconvenient ideas into my head about blood status equality and I do appreciate her immensely but she is - and even you must admit this, Mother - quite mad.”

“She’s _eccentric_ ,” his mother says. 

“She’s _batty_ ,” his father says.

“Well, this is a fascinating case study, isn’t it?” says George, looking sincerely intrigued. “Who knew three people - in the same family, no less - could have such varying ideas about one woman?” He turns to Draco and quietly adds, “I’d very much like to meet her.” Draco hums.

“We’ll see,” he says, and then, with an eye roll, “I’m not exactly keen on hearing her say she was right and I should’ve listened to her, though.” 

“Shall we retire to the sitting room for tea and pudding, darling?” Lucius asks Narcissa as he stands up. 

“Of course,” she says, folding her napkin besides her plate and waiting for Lucius to pull her chair out for her to stand as well. “Join us, George? It’s trifle.” Draco whips his head around to look at his parents, wholly surprised, and then back to George, who’s looking at him with a mirrored expression. George has stayed for pudding and tea before, but he’s never been invited to the sitting room for it. Draco’s explained it, the ritual of it, the meaning. The sitting room is for their _family_ , selectively precious - the three of them, and Snape, when he was alive, and Auntie Shafiq and Blaise and Pansy. Even Bellatrix never joined any of them there.

“Er, yes, I’d be happy to,” George says to Draco’s mother, scooting out his chair and standing alongside Draco. She smiles at him pleasantly as she and Lucius leave the room, arm in arm, and then George turns to Draco again as they follow Draco’s parents. “Really?” he whispers excitedly.

“I told you they liked you,” Draco hisses, giving George’s elbow an affectionate pinch. “Don’t ruin it.”

\---

George is sitting on the edge of the bed unlacing his boots when Draco saunters over and places his hands on George's shoulders, straddles him, and tips him back onto the bed. George licks his lips and gazes up at Draco with a telling look.

“Really? I’ve not even taken my shoes off,” George says, gesturing at his fully clothed body.

“The first time we fuck,” Draco says, ignoring George's words but not his quiet gasp at Draco’s, “I want it like this.” George huffs out a noticeably weak laugh.

“Figures you’d want to be on top,” he says, his hands coming to rest on Draco’s thighs. “You want to be in control. Typical.” Draco shakes his head and gives George a lazy smile, takes hold on George's hands and moving them up to his hips instead.

“You can take control. You know better than I do,” Draco says softly, watching George's chest rise and fall more rapidly with his breathing. “I just like this view, to be honest. I want to see you like this.”

“What’s so special about the view?” George asks. Draco bows over him, hands on George’s chest, so that their faces are mere inches from one another.

“For example, I get to see the marks I make on you,” Draco says, digging his fingernails into George’s flesh for a brief moment, causing George to arch his back and let out a quiet, strangled sound. “And I get to see the way you look up at me.” He captures George’s open mouth in a kiss, expecting George’s hands to travel to his hair, as they nearly always do, but George keeps them on Draco’s hips instead, squeezes hard enough to make Draco gasp and break the kiss. Instead of lifting his head, he looks down, between their bodies, sees the tight grip George has on him. It’s easy to imagine this without clothes, his own hard dick smearing pre-come on George’s belly as George fucks him, holding his hips in place. He licks his lips and looks up at George again, notes the dark blue of his eyes, his blown pupils. 

“I want you to leave bruises,” Draco breathes, and feels George shudder under him.

“So you’re--you’re ready then?” George asks. Draco nods, slightly amused when George does, too, a bit wild. “Alright,” says George. “Alright. We can start getting you ready.” Draco’s brow furrows.

“I just told you--”

“Prepping you, I mean,” George says with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “The last thing I want is for this to hurt for you. I need to open you up, get you used to the feeling, and you’ve never done this bit before so I’ve no doubt you’re, like, _really_ tight, so it will probably take some work.”

“Merlin,” Draco mutters. “Do we really need to--”

“ _Yes_ ,” George says vehemently. “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable or anxious the first time we do this - or _any_ time we do this, at that.” He lets go of Draco’s hips and threads his fingers through Draco’s hair. “Do you understand me?” Draco swallows, nods.

“Yeah, I understand,” Draco says. The weight of George caring about him like this feels crushing, and, embarrassingly, his eyes begin stinging, but George pulls him down for a kiss again before it gets worse, and Draco lets himself get lost in it. At some point - Draco always loses time when they’re like this - George deftly turns them over so that Draco is under him, grounded by the pleasant solidness of George’s body. He whines when George breaks the kiss and doesn’t even feel ashamed over it.

“For now,” George says, his lips a torturously short distance above Draco’s, “I’m just going to blow you.” 

“God, yes,” Draco says, ignoring George’s laughter as he arches his back and spreads his legs in anticipation.

\---

George takes Draco out into Muggle London two days later for lube.

“This is ridiculous,” Draco hisses as they walk into some shop called Boots. “You can’t trick me - I _know_ there are potions and spells that do the same thing.”

“I’m not trying to trick you. You do _not_ want to use a spell for this,” George says, leading him through the aisles. “Other aspects of the prep, sure, but not this.”

“Okay, fine, you know best,” Draco says begrudgingly, gritting his teeth. “But a potion, or a tincture--”

“Muggle lube is _better_. Trust me.” Draco hums skeptically as he comes to a stop beside George in front of a shelf of products that are entirely unfamiliar to him. George seems to be looking for a preferred type of lube, so Draco lets his curiosity guide him closer to the shelf, scrutinizing the small selection of red and blue and purple boxes labelled “Durex.” He scans the other words on each box - confusing and disconcerting terms like “Intimate Feel” and “Mutual Climax” and “Comfort XL” - and eventually grabs one called “Real Feel,” turns it over to read the back, where he is immediately advised to read the instructional leaflet inside carefully, especially if he is using it for the purpose of anal sex. He practically throws the box back onto the shelf.

“Be glad we don’t need to use those,” George says quietly. Draco turns his head to see George holding up a little blue bottle, the same brand as the box he was just holding, labelled “Play Feel Pleasure Gel.” A blush rises to his cheeks and he ducks his head to hide it. George kicks lightly at Draco’s shoe. 

“What even are they?” Draco asks in a whisper. 

“Condoms,” George says lowly. “Supposed to protect against pregnancy and diseases.” Draco’s eyes go wide.

“Diseases?” he says, so soft he almost worries George can’t hear him, but George nudges at Draco’s hand with his, circles Draco’s wrist with his fingers.

“We don’t have to worry about that,” he says, reassuring and quiet. “ _That’s_ what wizards have got potions for. And anyway, you and Blaise were both virgins when you fooled around, right? And I don’t have anything either, so that’s not even a concern with us.” 

“Right,” Draco says, calming. George glances around the shop for onlookers before leaning in and giving Draco a quick, featherlight kiss. 

“Give me your Muggle money so we can get out of here now,” he says. 

“This is theft,” Draco says dryly, already retrieving his wallet from his pocket.

\---

Pansy is back from her naturalist trip with Luna Lovegood - or, as Blaise has been calling it since she left, “her bizarre creature-observing unnecessary Asiatic excursion with that conspiracy theorist Loony.” Either way, she’s back, and Draco and Blaise are eager to see her, to hear about the trip beyond the weekly Owls she sent them. She mostly complained in her letters, but Blaise and Draco know her better than anyone, and found it easy to read between the lines of her words, to recognize how much she was enjoying herself.

“Then we went to Bali, and we actually spotted a barong, which is considered only a myth, but obviously is real, and not just because Luna says so,” Pansy’s saying betweens mouthfuls of potatoes. 

“You and Luna got along, though,” Blaise says. “I could tell in your letters.” A faint pink appears high on Pansy’s cheeks, which Draco thinks is...curious. He sits up straight, narrows his eyes at her.

“Yes, well, she’s actually quite, er, entertaining,” Pansy says, downing her pumpkin juice with an abrupt, singular focus.

“Oh my god,” Draco says. “You have a crush on Luna Lovegood.” 

“No!” Pansy exclaims defensively, slamming her glass down on the table. “No! I do _not_ have a _crush_ on Luna Lovegood!”

“Oh my god,” Blaise says, a small, sly smile emerging on his face the only sign of his excitement. “You absolutely do.” Pansy’s whole face has reddened now. She leans in toward them angrily.

“ _No_ , I don’t,” she hisses, “but we _did_ sleep together a few times, alright? Are you happy now?”

“Pansy!” Draco says, eyes wide with delight. She sticks up her middle finger at him.

“Is she any good?” Blaise asks in a lazy tone. Pansy glares at him.

“ _Obviously_ , or it wouldn't have happened more than once, would it?”

“But you’re not interested in a relationship or anything with her?” Draco asks, finding it rather difficult to believe.

“No, and I’m fairly certain she and War Hero Longbottom are, like, destined for each other or something anyway,” she says, rolling her eyes. Then, confusingly, she gives Draco a look of pity. “Draco, you know that many, many people are comfortable and even welcoming to the idea of casual sex, right? Not everyone is as traditional as you.”

“Now hold on!” Draco all but shouts. “When did this become about me?”

“Isn't everything?” Pansy says, just as Blaise gives him a thoughtful look and adds, “She makes a good point, you know.”

“Et tu, Zabini?” Draco says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Are you still waiting, then?” Blaise asks.

“For the ri--”

“The right man, yes, we know,” Pansy says, long suffering. Draco scowls. _I’ve already found him and we're working on it_ , he thinks. _We're getting there. Soon._

\---

“Soon,” George promises as he twists his two fingers, makes Draco come without a touch at all to his dick. Draco swears, as angry as he can manage while floating down from an incredible and surprising orgasm, which is still quite angry.

“I’m ready, come _on_ ,” Draco says while George licks hungrily at the mess on Draco’s belly, which always makes Draco feel as though his brain has been struck by lightning. He fights through it this time, one hand in his own hair - he never knew he liked having his hair pulled until George, and now he could probably get fully hard from just one firm yank, if he’s honest - and the other thrown way out to the side, fisted in the sheets. He feels George’s tongue on his cock and fingers inside him, attentive and unforgiving, and groans, long and loud. “I’m _ready_. I can take it, I swear,” he says desperately. George, ever a tormenter, takes the head of Draco’s dick in his mouth and hums, makes stars dance behind Draco’s eyelids.

“You’re not there yet,” George says, pressing a kiss to the base of Draco’s cock. “You’re the one who keeps telling me how thick my dick is.”

“‘Keeps telling you’?” Draco says incredulously. George curls his fingers and Draco cries out, swears again. “I’ve said that only, like, four times. Five, at the _most_. Leave it to a Gryffindor to warp the truth to inflate your own already engorged ego.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” George says, annoyingly placating. Draco looks down to see George smiling smugly up at him. “D’you want another finger now or to--”

“Now, please, now,” Draco begs, meeting the steady thrusts of George’s fingers. 

“Alright, al _right_ ,” George mutters, giving a soft slap to Draco’s hip. “Relax.” Draco stills, takes a few deep breaths, alternates between letting go and grabbing the sheets. “Good boy,” says George, and Draco’s brain gets struck by lightning again. He doesn’t realize he’s made a sound until he opens his eyes upon feeling George remove his fingers. George is looking at him with a raised eyebrow even as he reaches for the lube.

“You like being told you’re good, don’t you?” he asks, thoughtfully. Draco blushes to the roots of his hair. George smirks. “Don’t worry. We can revisit that later, if you want to visit it at all.” Draco swallows, caught, and lets himself be distracted by the lewd picture George paints, lubing up a third finger alongside his first two. 

“Ready?” George asks. Draco nods, drops his head back to the pillow, lets George take over again.

\---

Days later, Draco can take three easily, eagerly, and George sucks him off that way, his fingers deep inside Draco’s ass and Draco’s cock deep in his throat. It’s Friday night and he makes Draco come two, three, four times, until he’s a sweaty, incoherent mess on the bed, reaching for George, babbling out, “You, too, you should--can I--” and taking George’s dick into his hand, stroking until George buries his face in the crook of Draco’s neck and moans through his own orgasm, bites dully at Draco’s tender skin and then kisses an apology at the marks his teeth have left.

They take a break for water and a snack, to catch their breath. They have plans, ostensibly, to continue, but George pulls Draco into a hug, rests his tired head on Draco’s shoulder, and nearly falls asleep right then and there, so Draco makes the executive decision that it’s bedtime, calls George “old man” as George puts his arm around Draco. George’s hand drifts from its usual place low on Draco’s back to pinch lightly at Draco’s ass in retaliation. It makes Draco laugh sleepily, curl in closer toward the protective curve of George’s body.

Mid-afternoon on Saturday, George gently and affectionately palms Draco’s cock, presses his mouth to the soft skin of Draco’s hip and whispers things - dirty and sweet and filthy and loving - that cause Draco to blink fast and bite his lip. “I’ll make your first time so good, so good, Draco, so worth the wait,” he promises, and Draco whispers back, “Please, please,” with his hands tugging at George’s hair. 

George follows through on his promise the next evening.

Monday morning, Draco wakes up at 7, as always, and takes his shower. It’s only when he’s toweling off that he sees the bruises on his hips. It takes him entirely by surprise. It never hurt the night before, George’s grip, and Draco was so overwhelmed by everything that he didn’t even think about his prior request. But seeing them now, mapping out the placement of George’s hands on him, gives him a perfect little thrill, makes him smirk at his own reflection in the mirror. When he walks out of the bathroom to quietly get dressed, he glances at George, still sleeping soundly, sprawled open-armed across his side of the bed, the covers shoved down around his waist. Draco has to do a double take as he pulls on his jeans after spying ten small half-moon marks on George’s chest. He stares at the purple indentations that his fingernails left while he buttons his shirt, mesmerized by the ways that he and George have marked one another, made each other theirs. 

He looks at the face of his watch as he puts it on, wondering if they have time to get distracted this morning before going to open the shop. It could be quick, sure, but it would end up requiring another shower for Draco, and then they’d be running late with breakfast, and anyway, Draco’s only a few minutes off schedule and already feeling a bit cranky about it. No, perhaps it’s best if they don’t, if Draco just goes downstairs right now and cooks breakfast like he always does, so that George awakens to the sound of food being plated in time to eat and drink one cup of tea before dashing back up to take his own shower and put his own clothes on and then coming downstairs again to find Draco reading, holding out a second cup of tea for him. 

Draco nods to himself and walks downstairs. The routine is set for a reason, after all. _And anyway_ , Draco thinks, _we can always go upstairs to his flat when the shop closes for lunch._ He hums, satisfied, as he begins cracking open the eggs.


	8. Chapter 8

Draco’s mother has sat in plush armchairs in the same manner since she was eleven years old: sideways, her legs dangling over one arm, her shoulders resting on the other. She swears by its comfort as well as - once, when she was fourteen and Lucius, then fifteen and a new prefect and absolutely mad for this younger girl he wasn’t even dating yet, questioned her about the air of rebellion around it - by its ability to singularly vex her family. It remains perhaps the only thing she openly does that would undoubtedly be considered unladylike. According to Draco’s father, she tried every chair in the Manor library before she moved in so that she would already know the best one. Placement wise, it’s more or less than same as her favorite armchair in the Slytherin Common Room - adjacent to the room’s main heat source of the fireplace, under the superb lighting of the chandelier overhead, in front of a blank strip of wall bewitched to take the form and purpose of a window, despite the library being in the center of the house. She sits in the same chair still, in the same way. Draco has tried to mimic her position over the years, in different chairs in different rooms in different buildings, and never managed to find it as comfortable as his mother does. 

This evening, the cold of early December creeps in through the thick walls of the Manor, and Narcissa is wearing Lucius’ cashmere housecoat over her normal clothes while a nearby small fire roars behind a secure, book-saving protective charm. Draco sits curled in the chair on the other side of the coffee table from his mother, reading the most recent edition of _Beyond Unicorns, Dragons, and Phoenixes: Wand Cores Around the World_. Dramatic orchestral music can be heard faintly, bleeding through the walls and floor and ceiling from his father’s office. Draco wonders, not for the first time, if his mother is bothered by it, considers it a disturbance, or if she finds it comforting, a constant reminder that her love is close at hand. He thinks of George, of the way he’s made the guest room at Spinner’s End into his new experimental study of sorts, and how when Draco is reading in the living room, he can hear George working upstairs. Sometimes he stops reading for minutes at a time just to sit and listen, try to imagine what it is George is doing exactly, how long it will take to perfect whatever new product he’s got in mind now, where it will fit on the shelves of the shop when it’s completed.

He’s nearly finished with the book by the time he leaves, steps into the fireplace in the Manor’s living room and steps out of green flames into that of Spinner’s End. It isn’t very late, but George is already asleep, which means that he’s officially caught the cold that Calliope had last week and that Draco will be making Pepper-Up Potion for him in the morning. He undresses as quickly as he can while maintaining quiet, but the cold still kisses his skin before he can reach shelter under the sheets and blankets. He wiggles, tentatively, close to George, not wanting to wake him, but George huffs in his sleep, starts to rearrange himself, and Draco seizes the opportunity to curl up against him like he does every night. Draco drifts off to sleep when George’s arm curves around him, as if it was always there, the warmest muscle memory.

\---

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Draco says to Meriweather.

“What's that?” she asks.

“I think I’ve figured out...well, I suppose I don't know exactly what it is,” Draco says. “I mean, I don't presume to know what it means--”

“Ended your unfortunate habit of jumping to conclusions, have you?” Meriweather says, wearing an amused expression. Draco rolls his eyes.

“Well, you see, the most obvious conclusion I believe I could jump to with this is perhaps the worst case scenario and it would make me quite unhappy to dwell on it, so I’m trying to--” he makes a motion with his hand, like he’s slicing through the air, “--cut through my instinct to twist in my anxiety like a madman and actually be, like, something close to a normal, adequately-adjusted human being.” Meriweather raises her eyebrows at him.

“Alright, I’m listening,” she says.

“Right,” Draco says, gathering his thoughts once more. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “The way it seems to work is this: I want to feel safe and George wants to be a protector. I think--he mentioned the other day that he can't help but feel like his brother wouldn't be dead, if only George was with him when it happened. Now, obviously that's the survivor's guilt speaking, but it's also the fact that every time I have a nightmare, the one thing he always says is, ‘I won't let anything like that happen to you again.’ And the way he says it--it sounds like he needs to hear himself express the sentiment as much as he needs me to hear it and believe him.”

“Hmm,” says Meriweather. “And do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Believe him when he says that?”

“Yes,” Draco says without hesitation. Meriweather nods.

“So you give him what he needs. Does he give you what you need? Does he make you feel safe?” she asks.

“Yes,” Draco says again, emphatically and without pause. “He’s good and strong and fearless - stupidly so, you know Gryffindors - and he...he makes me feel safe and good and protected--”

“Why the emphasis on ‘good’?” Meriweather says shrewdly. Draco stares at her. “Do you mean that he gives you good feelings or that he makes you feel like a good person?”

“Can't it be both?” Draco replies, biting his lip. Meriweather narrows her eyes at him.

“It can,” she says. Draco sighs.

“I mean, obviously he does ‘ _give me good feelings_ ,’ whatever the hell that means, but I….” Draco stops to consider the question. “I don't care about the other thing much anymore, I don't think.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because George doesn't care,” Draco says. “He knows exactly who I am and...well, he says that he does. He says that I’m soft.” 

“Do you agree with him?” Meriweather asks. Draco squirms and looks down at his knees.

“I think that I’m very hard on myself at times,” he manages to say, slowly echoing words Meriweather has repeatedly told him, not for the first time, and hoping they’ll stick to him one day. “I think that he probably sees things in me that I don't and so believes his assessment of me. I think that he’s seen a lot of the ugliest and worst that I have to offer, back when we were in school, and he doesn't hold any of it against me now.” He looks back up at Meriweather. “I think that if he wants to spend time with me, if he wants to keep me safe, then I’m worth that much at least, right? Good person or not.”

\---

An orange beam of rare winter sunlight hits George's hair just so at 7 in the morning on the twentieth of December and makes it look like a wildfire. Draco can't take his eyes off it as he wakes, nor the freckles scattered like confetti over George’s shoulders and back. He needs to shower, but he lies there instead and just watches, just drinks in the sight of George Weasley in his bed, and realizes, suddenly, that he’s in love. It's that thought that gets him to his feet, propels him through his morning routine all the way down to the kitchen, where he panics quietly while cooking breakfast.

He's not sure why he’s the least bit surprised. He's obviously been in love with George for weeks, months probably, or else he wouldn't have wanted to have sex with him, for one thing. But on the other hand, he can't quite believe that he let this happen, and without his knowledge, even. He's usually so hyper aware of himself, of every feeling and thought and worry and habit, but this has just been building quietly in the back of his mind, in his heart, and he never noticed. What a foolish predicament he allowed himself to fall into.

And - he almost burns the sausage, thinking this - what if George isn't in love with him in return? What if, when it got down to it, it's unrequited? What if George leaves him and he’s stuck like this, like a charm half-worn off, in love with a Weasley until the day that death finally bestows mercy upon him and ends his misery? 

But then, as he begins doling all the food out onto plates, he understands that such a train of thought is itself foolish. He knows what love is. He knows what love looks like: his mother's hand on his father's wrist at a table full of Death Eaters, at their most humiliated, when his father needed strength and guidance and his mother provided it, even as she needed it herself. He knows what love sounds like: Ron Weasley screaming bloody murder from the Malfoy Manor cellar for Hermione Granger, thrashing against the bars locking him away from her, unable to protect her, desperate to save her even though he needed rescuing, too.

He knows, now, what love feels like. It's strange to remember that he once never thought he would learn it, even just a few months ago. And now it's part of him, part of his life every day. He wakes up to it, cooks it breakfast, rolls his eyes at it, trusts it, counts its freckles, falls asleep in its arms. 

George loves him. It’s a plain truth. George is in love with him. Of course, he is. How could Draco ever doubt it?

He's adding the sugar to George's tea when George appears, bleary-eyed and soft-looking. There's a crease in his face where he had his head smashed into the pillow. His hair is truly wild, and getting too long - Molly was right to say so at dinner on Monday - and he runs a hand through it, ruffles it, which only makes it worse.

Merlin, Draco _loves_ him.

George grunts a greeting and takes a sip of tea and then Draco is at his side, arms around his neck, kissing him until they're both breathless.

“Oh,” George says, very much awake now. “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Draco says, smiling. He goes back to his side of the table. It's cold and rainy and work will be an obnoxious sort of busy because Hogwarts has just let out for the holiday break and as far as Draco is concerned, sitting here, right now, watching George stuff far too many mushrooms into his mouth, it's going to be a wonderful day.

\---

They can’t spend Christmas together, but they manage to get away from their families for New Year’s Eve. They go to a little inn in the Irish countryside and look out the window at the stars as a new year - “A new millennium!” George exclaims, which sends Draco off on a rather passionate discussion of how the Muggles are coping with what they’re calling “Y2K,” an impending catastrophe that Calliope pretends to not be concerned about but definitely is - begins. They lie in bed and talk quietly, about magic and Darkness and family and music and sex and cinema, until they fall asleep, and when they wake up, George convinces Draco to stay in bed all day, and even when they Apparate back to Spinner’s End around noon, it’s only to crawl back under the blankets and continue their morning activities, stopping only for sustenance and short naps. The next day, they have breakfast with Calliope, who is already laughing at the idea of disaster striking at the first midnight of 2000, and lunch at the Burrow, where Fleur debuts an impressive baby bump that seems to have appeared overnight, and dinner at the Manor, where Lucius and Narcissa, much to Draco’s utter surprise, allow George to see them in casual clothing, his father in dark fitted jeans and a plain button-down under a corduroy blazer, his mother in thick ribbed leggings and a short floral dress and another of Lucius’ corduroy blazers. Draco is socially exhausted by the time they get back to Spinner’s End, and he rests his head in George’s lap and reads with George’s hand resting on his chest until he starts to fall asleep and George says, “Right. Bedtime,” and pulls Draco upstairs. 

January carries on with its typical chill. Orders for love potions begin coming in and Draco flatly refuses to make them until he and George have three minor arguments and eventually reach a compromise, and then he brews them weaker than usual while George designs a tiny square pamphlet which outlines the dangers and ethical issues of administering love potions on the unexpected to include in the packaging. Fleur makes him sit next to her at every Burrow dinner, gets him to speak in French toward her belly so that the baby can be familiar with the sounds of the language before they’re born. Longbottom tends to the garden, adopts an amused sort of expression as he swears to Draco that the Devil’s Snare is fine, just sort of hibernating, and Draco pays him extra for the reassurance, and Longbottom gives him an odd look, like he can’t figure Draco out. And before the month is over, Draco meets his aunt.

It happens at dinner at the Burrow, of course. Everyone is taking their seats at the tables outside. Large dishes of food start floating around to each person. At one end of the table, Potter and Weasley are explaining the next steps in their Auror training to Molly. Closer to Draco, Bill, Percy, and Granger are discussing a new and controversial proposed Ministry regulation on wand ownership. Draco’s trying to listen without being too obvious about it and George edges over, making it easier for Draco to shift nearer to the conversation, but a loud crack sounds through the air and, annoyed at the distraction, Draco glances up at its source, and sees--

Bellatrix.

His reaction is instantaneous, involuntary, a pure visceral response to the sight: he cries out in fear and shock, leaps to his feet and draws his wand, useless though it is, and shouts, “You!” But even as he does, he realizes that his eyes betrayed him. For all she strongly resembles Bellatrix Lestrange, this woman’s features are somewhat softer, her hair graying, her eyes lighter. A small child totters out from behind her dress, chubby little arms out for balance, calling excitedly for someone named “Hebbu.” _Andromeda_. She raises an eyebrow - so eerily like her sisters - and gives him an appraising look. He’s still got his wand flung out in front of him.

“Draco,” George says quietly, tugging at Draco’s sleeve, “it’s alright. It’s just Andromeda.”

“I know the Weasleys run a rather motley crew, but I have to confess that I never expected to run into my long-lost nephew at the Burrow,” Andromeda says, Black family haughtiness dripping from her voice despite decades of estrangement.

“He works for George, Andromeda,” Molly explains awkwardly, obviously unsure if an incident is about to occur over her dinner table. Draco watches Andromeda’s face as her eyebrow arches even higher.

“A Malfoy? _Working_? That’s new,” she says, crossing her arms. “I must have missed the part in the _Prophet_ ’s coverage where the Ministry seized all the Malfoys’ gold.”

“They didn’t,” Draco snaps, voice shaking. At the other end of the table, someone - Draco’s strongly suspects that it’s Arthur - snorts. Andromeda looks at him for another moment, her expression inscrutable, and then her shoulders slowly drop, her arms relaxing, and her brow furrows slightly.

“My sister really did a number on you, didn’t she?” she asks.

“Don’t talk about my mother!” Draco says. “She kept me alive - she saved Potter’s life!”

“I’m not talking about Narcissa,” Andromeda says calmly. 

“Oh,” Draco says in a small voice. He finally lowers his wand.

“Well,” Andromeda says, smoothing her dress down and walking toward him, “let’s do our breeding proud, shall we? I assume my sister and her dear husband taught you proper Pureblood etiquette.” She reaches him and performs a delicate little curtsy. Behind Draco, someone begins to laugh until Andromeda’s eyes find the culprit, who immediately stops at her glare. She’s quite like his mother, after all. Draco swallows, casts a glance at George, and turns back to his aunt before bowing, his head not quite low, just like his parents taught him. _You’re a Malfoy and a Black_ , his mother’s voice says in his head just as it did during etiquette lessons throughout his childhood, _and you should never bare the back of your neck to anyone_. When he returns to his full height and looks back into Andromeda’s face, she’s smiling at him, inexplicably kind, and holding out her hand.

“Andromeda Tonks,” she says. Draco nods, shaking her hand.

“Draco Malfoy,” he says. The toddler, having evidently escaped the clutches of whoever Hebbu is, suddenly hugs his ankle and sits down on his shoe. He looks down, horrified, at the little boy’s tuft of green-no-blue-no-red hair and hears a terrible voice in his mind, a voice he only ever still hears in nightmares. _What say you, Draco? Will you babysit the cubs?_ The child looks up at him and grins, grabbing at his jeans and babbling.

“And that's Teddy, my grandson,” Andromeda says with an affectionate sigh. Teddy looks at her and laughs before crawling away, towards Potter, who's been crouched nearby with open arms for this entire display. _Hebbu_ , Draco thinks, as Teddy climbs onto Potter's shoulders. _Sure_. He turns back to Andromeda, who is still staring at him.

“I believe we have some catching up to do,” she says. “If you're interested, that is.” Draco clenches his jaw, looks over at George, the ever watchful, poised to leave if Draco indicates that he wants to. Draco’s already keeping George a secret from his parents. What's another?

He looks at Andromeda again and nods. “Quite a bit, yes.”

\---

Lunch break on Valentine’s Day finds Draco and George at a Muggle sex shop. 

They did revisit it, the thing that made Draco blush to his hair. They’ve tried different things, all for the sake of determining what exactly Draco’s _thing_ is. It’s not pain for pain’s sake, but Draco knew that going in, and it’s not sensory deprivation - immediate panics upon being magically blindfolded and tied up settled that. It finally took a two-hour long conversation wherein Draco’s eyes barely left the floor to get to something foundational: Draco likes set rules, with set consequences for breaking said rules, so that any punishments he receives are ultimately his intentional decisions. George licked his lips when they got to this, cleared his throat, and still sounded a bit too breathless when he said, “I can work with that.”

Draco likes being ordered to his knees, bowing his head, baring the back of his neck to George. He likes when George takes the riding crop to his chest and shoulders, the flogger to his thighs and stomach, and both to his ass. He likes when George makes him beg, makes him say, “Please,” and, “Thank you,” makes his pride dissolve. But Draco usually doesn’t break the rules. George was right, before - Draco likes being told that he’s good.

Draco allowed himself to be convinced to go to a Muggle sex shop on Valentine’s Day while George knelt next to his face on their bed, fucking his mouth, one hand pulling his hair as the other wielded the flogger ever closer to Draco’s dick. “You like all this, after all,” George said, slapping Draco’s hip. “Why not see if there’s anything else you like?” He tugged Draco’s hair to push him away until Draco’s mouth was empty, and Draco gasped and sputtered and said, “Yes, yes, please,” and then George pulled him back into his previous place, struggling valiantly and enthusiastically to take George’s cock deeper in his mouth, and said, “Good boy.” (George asked again later, when they were both clothed and clear-headed, said, “We really don’t have to if you don’t want to,” and Draco said, “I want to,” and George nodded and smirked until Draco rolled his eyes at him.)

So now they’re here, and Draco stands in front of a wall of costumes that he supposes are meant to be sexually appealing, although he can’t for the life of him figure out why. Nearby, a woman leers at him, and he cringes, walks away from her and into an aisle full of dildos and plugs and nipple clamps. None of what he’s seen so far is even remotely of interest to him, and half of the men around here have been giving him lewd once-overs, and he seems to have lost his boyfriend somewhere amidst the madness of this shop.

He finally finds George in a corner, staring intently at a small wall display. Draco sidles up beside him and follows his gaze to several little instruments whose packaging declares them to be Wartenberg Wheels. Draco leans closer to get a better look at one of the curious pinwheels: a slim metal handle attached to a tiny steel wheel with sharp pins along its circumference. His brow furrows. He looks at George and, level with the hole in the side of his head, says, “Really?” George gives a tight shrug.

“Just thinking about the marks I can leave on your skin with one,” he says gruffly. Draco’s mouth goes dry as he looks back at the pinwheels, possibilities suddenly swimming in his mind. He thinks of the precise pulses of pain he would feel, probably not unlike that of the riding crop and the flogger, but razor-sharp instead, and traveling along wherever George directs it, Draco simply at his mercy. He imagines himself on his back, George fucking him, charming the wheel to float over Draco’s body, hovering and waiting for Draco to arch too close to it before spinning across his stomach, or George sucking him off, the pinwheel in his hand, rolling it along Draco’s thighs, dangerously close to his dick, or lying back and George straddling him and stroking himself, knees bracketing Draco’s ribs, as George rolls the wheel over Draco’s chest to spell out his own name, over and over again until _GEORGE_ burns angry red on Draco’s pale skin and Draco is a wretched mess, hard and begging and babbling, “I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours,” until George comes over his stinging skin and calls him “good.” 

Draco swallows. There’ve been a few times when he could swear he nearly floated, when George and the flogger and the crop and the idea of being good for George, even within a punishment, has made all of his senses go fuzzy, taken him higher, somewhere, made him feel something like weightless. It scared the hell out of him the first time, and when they do it like that - with the rules and consequences - he doesn’t always want that feeling, but he is curious enough to want to chase it a little more, see where it takes him, and he thinks maybe the pinwheel could get him there. He turns away from the wall, toward George, and leans in so his lips are almost grazing the scarred skin where George’s ear used to be.

“Buy it,” he says softly. George doesn’t show any signs of having heard him, and Draco worries for a moment that he’ll need to repeat it, but then he watches George lick his lips, follows the bob in George’s throat as he swallows, notices that George’s eyes darkened, pupils dilating.

“Yeah?” George says. Draco says nothing, simply reaches into his pocket for his wallet, stuffs Muggle notes into George’s hand and goes to wait outside.

It proves to be a worthwhile purchase.

\---

Draco can’t believe that no one has ever explained to George that he and Percy are the most alike of anyone in their family. 

“Are you being serious?” he asks an astonished George as they walk through Cokeworth together. “You’ve really never realized that?”

“Obviously not!” George says defensively. “Because it’s not true!”

“Yes, it is,” Draco says, laughing and shaking his head. “You and Percy - and Fred, from what you’ve told me - are the only ones in your family who could’ve done well in Slytherin.” George stops in his tracks.

“You bite your tongue,” he says darkly. Draco rolls his eyes and keeps walking, knowing that George will rush to meet his pace again in a few moments.

“I just _mean_ that you’re the ones with ambition,” Draco says, when George is next to him once more. “Ambitions which once drove a wedge between you and your family.”

“That never happened to me and Fred!” George says.

“Certainly not to the extreme that it did for Percy,” Draco concedes, “but how long was your relationship with your mother as strained as it was because she didn’t understand that you had different goals for your lives than she did?”

“But--that’s different,” George says, frowning.

“Oh, George, it really isn’t,” Draco says. “You and Fred and Percy were all dissatisfied with aspects of your upbringing that you decided to change for yourselves when you got the chance. You and Fred kept all those secrets for so long, openly defying your mother, and you did it for money.”

“We--”

“Percy threw himself into bureaucracy,” Draco talks over George, “with open disdain for your father, and he did it for power. And there’s nothing wrong with _either of those motivations_ , by the by. The point is that no one else in your family has done anything like that, you know, and you and Fred and Percy all suffered from your family not quite understanding why you wouldn’t just fall in line like all of your other siblings.” He expects more resistance, but George falls silent, and after half a block, Draco looks over at him. “Have I upset you?” he asks quietly.

“Only in that I now have to reevaluate the way I’ve treated Percy my entire life,” George grumbles, giving Draco a playful shove.

It’s odd, loving someone with such a big, affectionate family. The Malfoys have always been a small, classic isolationist unit. They neither needed nor wanted any other family members involved in their lives. Draco’s grandparents all died when he was a toddler, his father had no siblings, and the only family his mother ever spoke of for the majority of his life were her dead and imprisoned cousins. It was just the three of them - Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco - and no one else was welcome on their tiny island.

The Weasleys, though, constantly absorbing outsiders into their fold, are already a small nation-state to begin with. They come with off-limits zones and trade regulations and decades-long peace negotiations. They are honest with one another except when they’re not, and kind to each other except when they aren’t, and despite his best efforts, Draco reads it wrong sometimes, stumbles over conversations and situations that are probably second nature to those accustomed to this type of social interaction. 

Part of him still doesn’t care, when it comes down to it. It’s not as if he’s here for the entire Weasley clan, after all. He’s only here for George. The problem, of course, is that, for all this began with and still sometimes includes George feeling alienated from his family, he still loves them, still wants them in his life, so Draco has to figure it all out, somehow. His learning curve is made all the more complicated by his own history with George’s younger brother and sister - not to mention Potter and Granger, who are essentially Weasleys, too - and his habitual derision toward them.

George is finally realizing that Draco genuinely has a difficult time understanding why he can’t express the same criticisms of George’s siblings that George does. He’s evidently thought for months that Draco was just being deliberately obtuse so he could continue being an asshole, which, Draco has to admit, is a fair assumption. Now, though, George is trying to explain, and apparently finding it rather challenging.

“But _you_ say mean things about them,” Draco says. “Why can’t I say those exact same things without you getting angry at me?”

“Because it’s--alright, here,” George says, obviously calling upon his reserves of patience. “It’s like how _you_ can say something rude about your mother, for example, but you won’t let Harry get away with it.” Draco blinks at him.

“Why would I ever say anything rude about my mother?” he asks, sincerely mystified. George sighs.

“Okay, then perhaps it’s more like how the Slytherins would defend your own because you knew no one else would,” George offers. Draco raises his eyebrows.

“Have I greatly misled you into thinking that we all liked each other?” he asks. “That defensiveness was a matter of necessity, you know, of survival. Many Slytherins are extremely annoying, which shocks you, I’m sure.”

“You don’t say,” George says dryly. “Alright, so then--do you remember when you got back from seeing Pansy Parkinson off for her expedition to--where is it now again?”

“Australia,” Draco says with a mild sneer. “She’s in the fucking outback. Can you believe that? I know I said this already but, Merlin, I hope she doesn’t get eaten by a bunyip. Blaise would be inconsolable.”

“I’m sure she’s safe with Luna,” George says with vague dismissiveness. “My point is--remember when you came home and ranted for half an hour about how she was surely going mad? And all the other times you’ve called her a control freak and--and--bitchy?” Draco narrows his eyes.

“Yes.”

“So what would you do if I said those things about her?”

“I’d be furious,” Draco says immediately, already feeling a bit of rage at just the thought.

“Why?” George asks.

“You don’t know her like I do,” Draco says. “You don’t care about her. When I call her mad or controlling or bitchy, I mean, those things are all true, yes, but they’re also parts of her that I’m terribly fond of. It’s why I care so much for her--”

“Exactly,” George says, touching the tip of his own nose. It takes Draco a second, but then--

“Oh,” he says. “So it’s not about the truth of the statement at all?”

“It’s about the sentiment behind it,” George says. “See, you hate my stupid little brother, so when you call him stupid or whatever else, even if it’s true - which, I’ll admit, it often can be - you mean it to be cruel and belittling and all that, right? But I love him, even though he makes me want to pull my hair out half the time, so I get to call him all the names I like and it doesn’t mean the same thing.”

“Alright,” Draco says after a long silent moment. “I’ll...I’ll work on it.” George gives him a small smile alongside a roll of his eyes.

“Good enough, I guess.”

\---

“And they call it ‘Anonymous’?” Draco asks dubiously. Meriweather sighs.

“If you truly have an interest in the history of Twelve Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, then I’d be happy to provide you with some literature,” she says. It’s Draco’s turn to sigh.

“Do continue,” he says, slightly remorseful. 

“Well, it certainly seems like you’ve completed the first seven steps. Inadvertently, of course,” she adds with a smile that makes Draco sigh again and shake his head, which just causes her to smile more.

“Where are you leading me, Meriweather?”

“Steps eight and nine, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not an addict, you know,” Draco says. “That much, I know, is true.”

“Correct, but you _are_ recovering,” Meriweather says, “and these steps, I think, might help you along.” 

“Alright,” Draco says, flattening his palms over his thighs, rubbing absentmindedly at the denim of his jeans. “Let’s hear it, then. What’s the eighth step?”

“Steps eight and nine are both about making amends. First, you identify who you’ve harmed - or, in your case, who you feel you need to make amends with - and then you--well. Then you do it.” Draco looks at her in silence for nearly half a minute before looking down at his feet, drumming his fingers on his knees.

“The people I’ve harmed--” he starts.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t think of this in those terms,” Meriweather says gently. “That’s why I modified the step for you.”

“But I have harmed--”

“Perhaps, yes,” she says, and Draco looks up to meet her eyes. “But this is more about contrition, about penitence.”

“Penitence?” Draco says, thinking of every holiday church service he’s ever sat through. He can feel his lip curling, although not quite at the memories. “What - so someone can bestow upon me _forgiveness_?” He doesn’t mean to sneer, but the idea is laughable, at best. 

“Something like that, yes,” Meriweather says. “My hope is that through another person forgiving you, you’ll be able to bestow some forgiveness upon yourself, by the end of it.” Draco snorts.

“Right,” he says snidely. “And who, pray tell, on this wretched earth is going to be interested in providing that to _me_?” Meriweather is quiet for a moment.

“If you think about it, I believe you’ll find you already know,” she says. Draco feels furious. He wants, for the first time in months, to walk out of this room, to quit seeing Meriweather, to just handle all of this on his own from here on out. But he thinks of his mother, of the promise he made to her back when his hands still shook, and simply makes fists, clenches his jaw, and agrees to the homework.

He tries working it out with George, but George only comes up with people Draco’s already considered - Potter, Granger, George’s little brother and sister - and dismissed as not possibly being the right candidate. For an uncomfortable sixty or so hours, he thinks it's meant to be Longbottom, but when he’s standing next to the Devil's Snare, watching Longbottom tend to the niffler’s fancies and wondering how to broach the subject, he realizes that it feels all wrong, and so abandons the notion. He wracks his brain for another two days and gets nothing, not until he appears on the hill in Ottery St. Catchpole for dinner at the Burrow. 

He glances out across the other hills surrounding the village, like he’s done on countless occasions, and sees a house shaped like a chess rook, and something in his mind slides into place. 

“That house - that's where the Lovegoods live, isn't it?” he asks. “I heard Potter mention it once.” George turns and follows Draco’s gaze.

“Yeah, that's them,” he says, then gives Draco a sharp look. “Is that it, then? The person - is it Luna?”

“I think so,” Draco says, sounding rather distant even to himself, his eyes steady on the Lovegoods’ home. “I think I need to go speak to her.”

“You want me to come with you?” George asks. 

“No, you go on ahead,” Draco answers, reaching out to give George’s hand a squeeze. “Tell your mum I’ll be there soon.” George smiles, wishes him luck, and turns to walk down the hill toward the Burrow. Draco takes a deep breath and begins his own walk.

It's quite a long one. Draco actually runs part of the distance, hoping that the exercise will clear his head, but it only scuffs his boots, so he walks the rest of the way, grateful that he and George happened to Apparate earlier than usual this evening. The first thing he sees as he finally approaches the house is a broken gate with three wooden signs on it, all hand-painted, touting this as the headquarters for _The Quibbler_ , inviting visitors to pick their own mistletoe, and - this one makes Draco crack a small smile - advising people to _KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS_. There’s a zigzag path toward the front door, after the creaky gate, which is lined with all sorts of strange plants that Draco is sure Longbottom must love. Draco knocks on the big black door and waits, anxiety settling in, a heavy weight climbing up his ribs. 

After a few moments, during which Draco seriously considers just turning and running, the door opens to reveal a tall man with slightly crossed eyes and long white hair down to his shoulders. Xenophilius Lovegood appears friendly, if a bit spacey, but Draco looks at him and can only think of how terrified he must have been when his daughter was being held captive in the cellar of Draco’s family home. Draco again considers just turning and running.

“Hello there,” Lovegood says, but his growing smile stops as his eyes really focus on Draco’s face. His jaw tenses. “You’re the Malfoy boy,” he says, voice low and unfeeling. 

“I just….” Draco starts, taking a step backward, the anxiety in his ribs shoving him away from the door, “I just was in the area and I wanted to--to speak to Luna, if I could.” Lovegood’s eyes narrow and Draco shakes his head, opens his mouth to say, “Nevermind,” but an airy voice comes from behind him.

“Oh, hello, Draco.” He jumps, turns around to see Luna arriving down the path, Longbottom following close behind her, both of them carrying small bowls full of water and several little round fish with legs. “Are you here for dinner too? We weren’t expecting you, but as luck would have it, Neville and I have probably caught enough freshwater plimpies to make soup for four.” Draco notices the cute tiny fish all abruptly cower in their bowls, evidently only now learning the purpose for their relocation from the nearby stream.

“Ah, no,” Draco says, glancing furtively back at Luna’s father. “I just wanted to speak with you. Alone. If you’re alright with that.”

“I am. That sounds nice,” Luna says. She turns to Longbottom, who has stepped up beside her, and holds up her bowl. “Will you take this inside for me, Neville? You and Daddy can start the soup together.”

“Sure, Luna,” Longbottom says, smiling at her as he takes the bowl from her. He looks at her like he’s absolutely knackered in love, which, Draco surmises, he probably is. Draco wonders if he ever looks at George that way around other people, if a shrewd onlooker has ever observed them and made the right conclusion, if maybe that’s why Granger seems to have been watching the two of them more closely over the past few dinners at the Burrow. Honestly, the thought is rather nauseating.

“I hope you don’t mind talking while we pick some plums,” Luna says as Longbottom goes inside, coaxing Luna’s father along the way until they finally close the door. She waves her wand and conjures a large rounded wicker basket and turns to walk back down the path toward the gate again, motioning for Draco to follow.

“No, no, I don’t mind,” he says as he walks behind her. “I’ve never picked dirigible plums before.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how,” she says. They stop in front of a cluster of small bushes bearing orange fruit shaped like radishes which grow upward and sway in the air as if they’re floating. Luna places the basket on the ground and says, “It’s fairly simple. You just grab hold of one and twist it as you pull it away from the bush. The trick is to do it very quickly, like an ambush, or else the surrounding plums will attack you.” Draco blanches.

“They’ll _attack_?!” he says. 

“Well, they’ll try,” Luna answers, smiling like she’s got a secret. “Mostly, they’ll just beat themselves on your fist in defense of their sibling. I think it’s cute, but it’s quite mean to let them do it. It bruises them, you know. Leaves them in a bad state.”

“Oh. Right. Understood,” Draco says, nodding. He watches Luna pick one plum before he does himself. He hesitates for a fraction of a second in the process, long enough to see the plums surrounding his hand begin to shiver and move closer, before snapping the plum from its stem. In its place, a tiny new bead of orange emerges instantly, ready to start growing.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Luna asks. She gently tosses the three plums she’s picked so far into the basket. Draco follows suit with his one as he clears his throat.

“Well, I, um.” He takes a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize to you.”

“Oh, alright,” Luna says, and looks at him expectantly. He stares blankly at her, nearly getting his fist beaten with a few plums in his distraction. “You haven't actually apologized for anything yet,” Luna whispers. “You only said you wanted to.”

“Oh,” Draco says.

“Don't feel badly. It happens all the time,” says Luna.

“Right,” Draco says, realizing suddenly that she's not wrong. He clears his throat again. “I, ah, I’m sorry, Luna, for...for what happened to you at my home--my family’s home.”

“I’ve already forgiven you, Draco,” Luna says, looking at him with a measure of surprise. 

“You have?” Draco asks, vaguely stunned. 

“Of course,” Luna says, reaching over the bush to rest her hand on his for a moment, a fleeting, reassuring gesture that ends when plums lunge for both their hands. “There wasn’t much to forgive, truth be told. It wasn't your fault and I could never truly blame you. You didn't kidnap me, for one. I remember the look on your face when you arrived home and first saw me there before they took me to cellar. You had no idea.” Draco cringes at the memory, drops five plums into the basket.

“You don't think that I’m some sort of monster, then?” he says quietly, moving to the next bush. 

“No, I would never think something so horrible about you,” she says. “You were never cruel to me or to Mr. Ollivander. You took care of us the best you could.” She pauses, gives him a thoughtful look. Behind her, the sun is setting, and her yellow hair is glowing bright. “Monsters are made, you know, ultimately,” she says. “Not all monsters, but some. They're formed when people are forced to internalize the negative opinions others have of them.” She adds another half dozen plums to their collection from a third bush before moving on to a fourth. 

“Is that so?” Draco says, nervous by this prospect Luna's put in his head now. He’s fairly sure it means that he is, in fact, a monster, if Meriweather is also to be believed.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Luna asks. Draco doesn't answer, remembers from those mealtimes in the Malfoy Manor cellar that she won't wait for one anyway, not when this particular look is in her eyes. “I think it’s easy to begin to agree when all the feelings around you are bad ones, especially for a very anxious person like yourself. You’ve absorbed guilt that isn't yours. I can see it on your face.”

“Can you?” Draco asks skeptically. Luna nods and steps closer to him.

“You wear it under your eyes,” she says, her thin fingers brushing lightly over his skin. “And at the corners of your mouth, and a bit on your forehead, too.” She steps back again and smiles up at him. “I think you just have to learn to trust yourself.” She picks up the basket and holds it out to him. He drops the last four plums inside.

“I’m sorry, too,” Draco starts, seized with another realization about himself, “for not being nicer to you at school.” It sounds flat, he knows, but it's true, now, knowing what she did for him, knowing it was far more than what he did for her. Luna shrugs and shakes her head.

“I’ve forgiven you for that as well,” she says. “Most people weren't exactly nice to me, don’t you remember? Besides, there's a difference between being nice and being kind, and I much prefer kindness.” Draco scoffs.

“I’m not a very kind person either, though,” he admits. Luna hums, considering.

“I don't know about that,” she says. “You’re getting there, I think. You already show small kindnesses anyway. That's a better start than most.”

“I do?” he asks, utterly mystified.

“Sure,” says Luna. “You’re here, after all, picking plums.” She smiles at him. “Speaking of,” she reaches into the basket and hands him a plum. “They open the mind, you know, dirigible plums. Enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary, even, perhaps, that you’re not a monster.” Draco huffs out a laugh.

“I could probably use that,” he says, shaking the plum at her. “Thank you, Luna.” They step back onto the path, Luna turning toward the house, Draco toward the gate.

“You should give that a quick scrub before you eat it,” she advises, very seriously. “Wood nymphs live in the bushes and sometimes they smoke gillyweed together. The smoke residue on the skin of the plums diminishes their effects.”

“I’ll do that,” Draco promises, and he does, stands at the kitchen sink in the Burrow and surreptitiously scrubs the plum as Molly stirs the stew and talks proudly of her daughter doing so well flying as a Chaser for the Harpies.

“She's leading them right to a championship, I just know it,” Molly says while Draco examines and dries the fruit on his shirt. “First one in four years, you know, Draco.”

“I’m not surprised,” Draco says quietly, not wanting any Weasleys who may be in the hall at this moment to hear him complimenting someone other than Bill, Fleur, and Charlie. “She was always impressive in matches at Hogwarts. Gave my house quite a bit of grief.” Molly laughs at this and goes on, raving about Ginny’s success and talent.

Draco takes a bite of the plum, wiping away the orange juice dripping down his chin as he chews. It tastes almost like nothing, but it's somehow salty, too, which surprises him, and it takes a fair amount of biting power to initially get through the firm flesh. He looks out the window, toward the Lovegood’s odd house, barely visible now in the distance and against the dark periwinkle of the sky. It's easy to understand why Longbottom loves Luna, why Pansy likes her so much. 

George walks into the kitchen then - Draco can tell by his footsteps - and goes to the sink, leans against the counter next to Draco. He raises his eyebrows, a smile playing on his lips, and Draco knows: of course he looks at George the way Longbottom looks at Luna. How could he not?

\---

George has nightmares sometimes, too, has since...well, probably since the Battle of Hogwarts, probably even during the war in full, but certainly since he and Draco got together. George doesn't wake up screaming like Draco does; he kicks, has full-body twitches, mumbles things, horribly sad things that make Draco’s chest ache. Draco has to jostle him a little, talk him to wakefulness. George squeezes him tighter, holds him closer, then, lets Draco press soft kisses over his heart until he falls asleep again. It always takes Draco at least half an hour to join George in slumber.

They're growing more frequent this month. 

Draco knew that spring would be difficult. He was preparing for this, in one way or another, but it still takes a lot out of him. George has had his moods, obviously, but it takes a dark turn come early March, and Draco fears it won’t let up until the end of April. It’s a marathon, as Calliope would say, not a sprint, so Draco has to tread carefully, choose his battles wisely. George is on edge all day, every day, until he settles into bed with Draco, when he closes his eyes against tears and whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as Draco hushes him quietly, kisses him asleep. George snaps at customers, at Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson, at family members, at Calliope. He keeps trying to pick fights with Draco, flinging hurtful words at him, clearly wanting an excuse to scream and rage at someone, anyone. Draco, having already asked Meriweather for advice, knowing this was coming, takes deep breaths, closes his eyes, walks away from every harsh accusation and unfair insult for over two weeks. 

Instead, Draco tries to soothe George’s nerves. He takes George on walks around the Manor grounds after dinners there so they can tend to the newborn peacocks, feed them and the new mothers in the cool air. He takes on more direct contact with customers so George doesn’t have to be bothered. He offers himself up, eagerly - because it’s good for him, too - drops to his knees and expertly sucks George off, straddles him and enthusiastically rides his cock, lets George leave bite marks on his shoulders and scratches on his torso and bruises on his hips and handprints on his ass. It all helps George for a time, calms him, but hours later his mood sours once more, and he returns to his scowling attempts at starting arguments.

Draco’s patience is worn quite thin by the end of March, but he’s trying - Merlin, he’s trying - until George, in another effort to goad Draco into fighting back, says, “How do you think you and your dad would be fairing in Azkaban, if there was any such thing as justice?” Draco’s blood surges through his veins. He slaps his hand to the countertop with a deafening sound that causes George to jump, wipes the vengeful sneer off his face.

“ _Enough!_ ” Draco shouts. This is something Meriweather told him to do as well, to set boundaries, to stand up for himself when George took it too far. It’s likely that he let George cross the line more often than he should have already, wanting to allow George the room to experience his feelings, but this is more than Draco can tolerate.

“I will never tell you how you should feel,” Draco says, his jaw set, his hands in angry fists as he looks George directly in the eyes. “I will never get in the way of you dealing with your trauma however you feel you need to, unless you’re a danger to yourself or other people. I will never not let you cope. But I will not let you turn this on me. Do you understand me?” George doesn’t answer, just swallows, and Draco continues, weeks of holding back his irritation and hurt bubbling up to the surface. 

“I didn’t kill Fred. I didn’t keep you from being with him when he died. I didn’t have anything to do with negotiating the plea deal for my family and me. I’m well aware, as _I know you know_ , that we escaped justice, and of what everyone thinks of me, and that people were hurt and killed because, in part, of me,” Draco says through gritted teeth. “But Fred was not one of them. I won’t let you put that on me, not now, not ever, I don’t care what month it is or how hard a time you’re having. You have a right to be angry, but you don’t have a reason to be angry _at me_ , and I won’t let you invent one. Understood?” Draco stares at George until George nods, looking properly ashamed.

“Good,” Draco says. “I’m going to go for my run with Calliope now, and when I get back, I’ll cook, and I hope you’ll join me for dinner, but if you’d rather be alone, or leave here and spend the night at your flat or elsewhere, that’s fine, too. I just ask that you let me know where you’re going if you won’t be here. Alright?” George nods, looks down, and Draco laces up his trainers and goes outside, runs off the remainder of his rage and sadness, quelling his anxiety, and when he returns home, George is plating dinner.

George doesn’t look up when Draco first enters the room, just focuses on his task. Draco sits down at the table, which is already set, and when George brings over the plates, Draco finally gets a look at his face. His heart breaks to see George’s red and swollen eyes, his blotchy face, but George says nothing until he sits down next to Draco, when he gives a disappointed little hum.

“I should have timed this better, so you could shower first,” George says, staring down at his meal. “I messed up your routine.” Draco shakes his head, gingerly touches George’s wrist.

“I can shower after,” he says softly. “You can even join me, if you want.” George scoffs and finally meets Draco’s eyes.

“You hate sharing the shower,” he says with a small, unsure smile.

“I can make exceptions from time to time,” Draco says, brushing his knuckles along George’s arm. George’s eyes shift down again. He watches Draco’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right. It’s not fair of me to lash out at you like I have been.” He looks up and Draco has to bite his lip at the sight of tears welling up in George’s eyes. “I didn’t mean it, what I said. I don’t wish you were in prison. I’m glad you’re not. I...I...Without you, I don’t even know if I would be here right now. I don’t think I would’ve lived past my birthday last year. _Our_ birthday.”

“George,” Draco says helplessly, at a loss with George’s confession. George sniffs, wipes at his eyes.

“You saved me that night, in the forest,” he says. “I was drowning, and no one saw it except you, and you...you saved me. You make me happy, Draco, and you take care of me, and I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you because I swear, I never want to hurt you, and I--” George has to take a deep, shuddering breath then, and Draco takes George’s hand in his, presses his lips to George’s knuckles. “I can’t promise it’ll be easy, that I won’t say anything awful from here on out, but I’m going to try, I promise you.” Draco nods, slides his hand in George’s hair and pulls him in for a kiss that leaves them both breathless, and when Draco pulls away to rest his forehead against George’s, the tears on George’s face have dried, his eyes no longer watery. 

It’s sweet that night, slow and reverent. George kisses each brutal mark that he’s left on Draco’s body over the past three weeks, like he’s apologizing for being so rough even though Draco wanted it. He licks Draco open, slips his fingers in alongside his tongue, feasts on him until Draco is practically sobbing, overwhelmed. He lies on his back and keeps his hands on Draco’s thighs as Draco lowers himself down. Draco lets out a happy, relieved sigh and rolls his hips slowly, slides his hands up his own chest and fists his hands in his hair. Below him, George groans and swears, and Draco almost smiles, enjoying himself, loving this kind of attention, knowing how obscene he must look to George. He could do just this for hours if he really wanted - has done before, twice - but that’s not what he wants now, so he leans down over George, feels George’s hand rise to rest steady against the curve of his spine. His own hands leave his hair and he props himself up on his forearms, his elbows on the bed above George’s shoulders, his face over George’s, his hips still rolling.

“Will you--” George says, then his hand leaves Draco’s thigh to reach for his wand on the pillow next to him. He points it at his own mouth and mutters a spell before casting it aside again, and then he buries his hand in Draco’s hair, pulls just enough to make Draco gasp. “Kiss me,” he says, and Draco does, feels the tingling cleanliness from the spell the moment their lips meet. He moans into the kiss, slows the rhythm of his hips to a grueling pace, and loses time fucking George like that, crying out into George’s mouth whenever George tugs at his hair.

Afterward, he lies on his stomach, eyes closed, right side of his face pressed into the cool side of a pillow, hugging it close, as he catches his breath. The bed dips under George’s weight as he returns from the bathroom, presses his hand to the center of Draco’s upper back and massages at Draco’s neck. 

“No washcloth then?” Draco asks, humming with the pleasure and relief of George’s fingers pressing in at the tense muscles of his neck. “You just want me to wallow here in filth?”

“Mmm,” George says suggestively. Draco snorts. He doesn’t have to see George to know that he’s waggling his eyebrows. George trails his hand slowly down Draco’s back, massaging as he goes, working out some of Draco’s lingering tension. He shifts over Draco’s body, following the massage with kisses as Draco squirms, pleased. By the time he’s pressing his lips to the slight curve of Draco’s ass, Draco is onto his obvious game.

“There are other methods, you know,” he mumbles, all faux innocence. 

“None are quite as fun as this, though,” George says, a smile evident in his tone. “It seems only fair, besides. I made the mess in the first place, so I should take an active role in cleaning up after myself, you know.”

“I do know,” Draco says, then he sighs. “Fine. If you with your depraved desires absolutely _must_ eat me out after you’ve just come inside me, then I suppose I would be cruel to stop you.” He hears George snickering.

“It’s so kind of you to make such a sacrifice for me,” he says, and moments later Draco is grabbing the pillow tighter, groaning loudly and gasping at the skills of George’s tongue. George alternates enthusiasm with teasing, keeping Draco on edge and unprepared, and Draco can't help grinding his hips into the bed for some relief. His orgasm slams through him unexpectedly, leaves him shuddering and burying his face in the pillow, which makes it easy to hide how his face burns with shame - _good_ shame, the kind that curls in his belly and waits to be useful - when George says in a low voice, “Who's the depraved one now?”

They take another shower. George performs a few spells to clean the sheets. They get into bed as usual. George traces invisible shapes onto Draco’s skin and whispers, “I love you.” It's the first time he’s said it, and Draco knows he can't say it back, can't beckon his voice to form the words, so he opts for something that's still true.

“I know,” he says. He feels George go still against him and has a moment of panic that his intentions have been misunderstood, but then George shakes with laughter, and Draco’s anxiety wanes.

“Oi, I’ll remind you we established _you’re_ Princess Leia and _I’m_ Han Solo,” George says.

“Once again, that conclusion was reached by unfair means,” Draco argues, pulling away from George enough so that his scowl can be seen.

“ _Democratic_ means, you despot. Me and Calliope outvoted you,” George says, grinning. Draco rolls his eyes.

“Regardless, Princess Leia is a shrewd and cunning royal who doesn’t take any shit from her lessers, and she has excellent hair, so this is all a compliment, really,” Draco says, letting George pull him close again and settling against George’s chest.

“Excellent hair, indeed,” George says, quiet, then, “So Han Solo was her _lesser_ , hmm?”

“Well, she thought so at first,” Draco says sleepily, “but he surprised her, you see.” 

\---

On the first of April, George goes to the Burrow without Draco. When he returns, tumbling through the fireplace at Spinner’s End, he looks drained, miserable, and Draco says nothing, simply takes him to the bedroom, undresses him, guides him into the shower and scrubs him down, washes his hair and rubs at George’s temples. Draco turns off the water, pats George dry with the fluffiest towel in the house, helps him into newly clean sweatpants, and pulls him into bed.

The next day, Draco kisses George and says, “Happy second of April, George.” They go to bed early but stay awake in the dark with George’s gift from Draco: a special watch that’s useless for telling time, but whose gears set to any date going back two centuries, and whose face then emits and projects the image of the stars in the night sky on those dates. Draco and George look up at the ceiling as they wheel through dozens of days - the birthdates of every Weasley and Malfoy, Granger and Potter and Blaise and Pansy’s birthdays, the anniversaries of George’s parents and then Draco’s, the Battle of Hogwarts, the night that Dumbledore died, the night that George lost his ear, the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, the Quidditch World Cup, the day that George and Fred made their grand escape from Hogwarts. Draco points out his namesake constellation whenever he sees it, and George begins making up his own, drawing nonsense shapes and calling them names like “Bob” and “Vanessa” and “Juan” and “Timothy,” until Draco gets lost in laughter, trying and failing to muffle his guffaws in the crook of George’s neck. It gets George laughing, too, and they fall asleep with smiles on their faces.

\---

Fleur goes into labor at the Burrow on the first of May. She grabs Bill’s arm as the dinner table is being cleared, twists until Bill grunts in pain, and as Bill is whipping around to look at her, she slaps her hand flat on the table and lets out a scream that causes Weasley to drop a stack of plates and little Teddy to cover his ears, his hair going white. Andromeda leaps to her feet, at Fleur’s side immediately, as Molly hurries from the other end of the table. Half of the people at the table are frozen in concern and shock, unsure of what they should be doing, if anything, while the other half are all speaking quickly, in growing volume, an ugly cacophony that hurts Draco’s ears worse than Fleur’s scream did. He’s about to move away - Bill, Andromeda, Molly, and Arthur are surrounding her, and Draco feels crowded, unneeded - but Fleur begins shouting in French, rapid fire and frantic, and Bill, who is still learning his wife’s native language, looks at Draco with a desperate expression and says, “What’s she saying? What does she want?” before yelling, “Shut up!” at the rest of the table. Silence falls, save for Fleur’s voice, and all eyes turn to Draco, who has to concentrate to catch every word and also hold back a laugh at one of her most earnest demands.

“She wants to go home,” he says to Bill. “She says to let this contraction pass and take her home so she can--er, so she can float in the sea until the baby’s ready.” He looks at Bill. “Does that make sense?” Bill nods dismissively, takes to smoothing down Fleur’s hair, and Draco decides not to translate Fleur’s desperate, repeated plea of “ _Not here, not here! I cannot have my baby here!_ ” and instead keeps that for himself, allows himself a snort of laughter as people around him begin talking again, albeit more calmly, all attention back on Fleur. After a minute, her pain seems to subside, and she looks to Bill.

“Home?” he asks. Fleur nods.

“ _Oui, oui, à la mer_ ,” she says, and Bill puts his arm around her shoulders and lifts her to her feet.

“I’ll send word when the baby’s born,” Bill says, addressing his family. 

“Do you want me to--” Molly starts.

“No, Mum, we’ve got a midwitch,” Bill says, his tone impressively patient, considering Draco’s heard him having this same conversation with his mother at least a dozen times in the last two months.

“But are you sure I shoul--”

“We made the birthing plan together months ago, Mum,” Bill says, rubbing Fleur’s shoulders as he maneuvers to gather her purse.

“Of course, dear, but don’t you think--”

“I love you, Mum, but we’re not deviating,” Bill says, and then with a great crack that pierces the air, he and Fleur disappear, and eleven faces stare in silence at the empty space where they once stood.

“Well, the French sure know how to break up an English party,” Andromeda says with a laugh after a moment. She sits down at the seat that Bill vacated, right across from Draco, and throws back the wine that remained in Bill’s glass.

“Yeah, isn’t that how your ancestors came to Britain to begin with?” George asks with a smirk, eyebrows raised as he elbows Draco. Andromeda lets out a cackle. Draco takes a long sip of mead, eyes locked with George’s as he slowly arches his left eyebrow before placing his cup down.

“Armand Malfoy and the rest of the invading army under William the Conqueror deserve your gratitude for the letter ‘q,’ you _rosbif_ ,” Draco says with a good-natured, smooth snarl. George and Andromeda dissolve into laughter that they immediately try to muffle as an angry voice carries throughout the garden. 

“A home _water_ birth! Honestly, Arthur!” Molly exclaims, wandering up and down the table in search of something to do in order to channel her frustrations with her son and daughter-in-law. She snaps at Potter and Weasley and Granger in turn, barking orders and admonishments, all the while complaining to Arthur and anyone else who can listen. “ _Floating in the sea_ during labor! And she only wants her family there during the birth! Can you believe that?”

“You can’t exactly blame her, can you, really, Molly?” George’s father says. “She’s young and this is her first child - isn’t it reasonable to want her own mother there?”

“ _Her own mother_ gave birth only twice! _Twice_!” Molly says, snatching a dirty cloth napkin from a startled Percy. “But no, the mother-in-law who gave birth to seven children has nothing of value to offer to the labor experience, I suppose!” In a rather awkward moment, a common realization seems to settle among the non-Weasleys at the table that they are all only children - or, in Andromeda’s case, gave birth to only one child, who also gave birth to only one child - and Draco finds himself making sudden, unexpected, and thankfully brief eye contact with Granger, both of them cringing, first at the situation and then at each other, before their eyes dart away.

“Ah, I believe this is my cue to leave,” Andromeda whispers. “Teddy, time to go!” she calls, and immediately, a whirlwind of a boy appears from under the table, his hair gone violet and curly. 

“We should go, too,” Draco mutters to George as soon as Andromeda is occupied with charming Teddy’s little shoelaces out of knots. 

“Good idea,” George says. He waits for three more seconds until Molly passes in front of them and jumps to his feet, pulls her into a swift hug, and kisses her on the cheek while Draco positions the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “Gotta go, Mum. See you at the christening.” He lets her go and grabs Draco’s arm, and Draco hears, screeching through the air as they disappear, Molly Weasley’s voice.

“The _christening_?!”

“That was brilliant,” Draco says, laughing, as he and George appear in the middle of Cokeworth. A scrawny cat at the end of the lane yowls and scrambles under an automobile. “Say something that you know will make your mother even angrier than she already is and Disapparate before you have to bear the brunt of her ire, knowing full well that she’ll be far too enamored with her newborn grandchild the next time you see her to remember that you even did anything.”

“It's a classic Weasley family move,” George says proudly. “Provoke, flee, return during distraction. Learned it from Bill and Charlie. ‘Bye, Mum, I’m gonna go break curses in Egypt! See you at Christmas!’ ‘Well, Mum, I’m going off to Romania to risk death by fire every day at a dragon camp, and also I’m gay, and also Fred and George know how to play Exploding Snap now. Have fun! Love you!’”

Draco throws his head back and laughs, the sound echoing off the terraced brick houses as they weave through the streets toward Spinner’s End. George reaches out to hold Draco’s hand as they pass the park and discuss, for the twenty-second time, how nice the park could be if someone fixed it up. Curtains close and lights go out in a hurry as they walk by, their nosy neighbors turning in for the night. Draco turns and leans against the door when they reach it, pulls George in for a kiss, like it’s the end of the night on a first date. George gets the joke immediately, smiles against Draco’s lips, murmurs, “You gonna invite me in for a nightcap, darlin’?” Inside, Draco stretches out on the bed, listens as George brushes his teeth in the bathroom, and wonders how Fleur is doing.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t sleep at your flat tonight?” he asks when George enters the room. George furrows his brow.

“We sleep here every night,” he says slowly. Draco sits up, his elbows on his knees.

“Yeah, but your sister-in-law hasn’t gone into labor every night,” he says. “Bill said last week that the plan was to let the family know right after the birth, remember? And then later when they were accepting visitors? What if he Floos your flat or whatever and you’re not there? It’s not like he’s going to think he’ll find you here. He doesn’t even know where I live.”

“Oh,” George says, relaxing. He tugs his shirt over his head and throws it in the laundry basket across the room. “I’m not worried. It’s Fleur’s first child - Mum said she’ll probably be in labor for like, a whole day.”

“If you say so,” Draco says, letting George push him back onto the bed and kiss him until sleep overcomes them both. 

\---

At exactly 7:36 the next morning, as Draco pokes at the mushrooms in the pan on the stove and tries not to think about where he was at this exact moment two years ago, a large, bright, translucent eagle bursts into his kitchen. 

“Malfoy!” Bill’s voice booms from the eagle, its wings flapping - the Patronus, Draco realizes, nearly dropping the spatula in shock and fear. “Get a message to George for me, will you? The baby was born a little after 1 this morning. George never responded to my Patronus then, but I figured he was just too sleepy. But the whole family’s over now - you’re invited, too, of course - except he’s not here and I still can’t reach him. Let him know, alright? And come as soon as you can!” With that, the Patronus fades, leaving Draco alone in the kitchen with burning mushrooms.

“What’s all the noise?” George says groggily, wandering into the room, sweatpants low on his hips. Draco spins around to face him.

“You’ve got a baby!” he says, then, at George’s raised eyebrows, “I mean, not you, obviously, but your--you’ve got a niece or nephew! We’ve got to go to Shell Cottage, _posthaste_.” He grabs the pan off the stove and holds it out to George. “Also, we, ah, might be in trouble. Can you Vanish this for me?” George’s eyes are wide, his jaw dropped. It takes him a few seconds to shake his head and pull his wand from his pocket and points it at the pan, making its burnt contents disappear. 

“You go get dressed,” Draco says, sensing that George is in need of some guidance, “and I’ll just fry the eggs so we can at least have something for breakfast. Then we can go to Shell Cottage, yeah?”

“Yeah,” George says, nodding, and after another moment, turns and heads upstairs. He returns after about ten minutes, bedhead vanquished, although looking a bit pale. He eats the eggs with gusto, far too quickly, but the distant look in his eyes is enough to make Draco think he shouldn’t mention it. They take the Floo to George’s flat for a quick stop. Draco runs downstairs to put up a _Closed Today_ sign on the door of the shop while George sticks his head in the fire to tell someone at Shell Cottage that he’ll be there soon. Draco is just coming back into the room when he sees George pull his head from the fireplace and stand up again, brushing his knees.

“Bill sent a Patronus with the message,” Draco says. “Can’t you do that, too?”

“I can’t make a Patronus,” George says.

“Oh,” Draco says, blinking as he toys with the buckle on his bag resting on the small table. “You didn’t learn how to do that in Potter’s Army or Dumbledore’s Deacons or whatever you called it?”

“We did,” George says, rubbing at his neck. “I could do it then. But I can’t--since Fred--I can’t--”

“Alright,” Draco says softly, reaching out to touch George’s shoulder. “That makes perfect sense, you know. And you’re one up on me, anyway - I could never produce one - so, ten points to Gryffindor and all that, I suppose.” George lets out a quiet laugh and squeezes Draco’s hand.

“Hey, did Bill say what time the baby was born?” George asks, turning to walk into the bedroom. Draco follows and sits on the bed nearest the closet George is rummaging through.

“He said it was a bit after 1,” Draco says. George’s movements slow as he pulls on a coat. He turns toward Draco.

“What were you doing a little after 1 in the morning two years ago?” he asks quietly. The air leaves Draco’s lungs with a punch. He bites his lip. He swallows.

“Fiendfyre,” he says. They’ve talked about these details before, mapped out a timeline with each other, what they were doing during the Battle of Hogwarts and when, who was nearby, who they saw injured, who they saw die. 

The hurtful truth is that Draco was there when Fred was killed - not _right there_ , of course, but there _enough_ , only half a corridor away. Draco, a retching mess at the time, barely able to speak, reeling from having his life saved by Harry Potter and from the revelation that his friend was dead - not to mention the realization that he truly did, in fact, think of Crabbe as a real friend - was close enough to hear it happen. The duel with Death Eaters that bled into the corridor, the joke from Percy, the final burst of laughter from Fred’s throat, the explosion that tore away a portion of the wall of the school, the seconds of deafening silence that followed, the agonized wail that seemed to pierce Draco’s lungs. He remembers raising himself up on his hands, hissing at the pain of a mysterious weakness in his left wrist, and looking down the hall, catching a glimpse of Fred’s face and knowing that he was dead. There was something, then, about the Weasleys suffering a loss so grand that made Draco feel scared, feel sick. It was what propelled him to his feet, finally, what made him shake Goyle awake, what caused him to take him off running again.

Draco glanced at his watch, at that moment two years ago, merely on reflex, as he forced himself up, and somehow had enough wherewithal still to read that it was 1:08. He remembers that time even now, for some reason, like it’s engraved in his mind, the one piece of hard data in a violent sea of abstractions from that night. 

Now, George nods silently, looks down as he zips his jacket up halfway. He looks at Draco, eyes scanning up and down Draco’s body, uncomfortably curled in on itself as it is on the edge of George’s bed, and says, “You’ll need one, too. It’s windy at their house.” He turns toward the closet again and Draco stands, takes the two steps to reach him, and when George turns back to him with a deep blue dragon leather jacket and an expectant look, he turns and holds his arms out so that George can dress him. The result is vaguely comical, the size difference between the two of them being most evident in their clothes, and George grins when Draco faces him again, biting back his own laugh.

“It’s a good look,” George says, a giggle escaping his mouth.

“This Swedish Short-Snout didn’t die for this,” Draco says. “I can’t believe you’re going to make Charlie hate me already.” George scoffs.

“Please. He’ll know it isn’t yours,” he says, which Draco thinks is an optimistic way of glossing over the fact that everyone at Shell Cottage will be able to tell that Draco is wearing an article of George’s clothing. The thought makes Draco’s neck heat up, but George doesn’t seem fazed, so he doesn’t say anything, and then George is holding his arm out for Draco to take, and then they’re standing on a cliff overlooking the sea. 

“Can you see it?” George asks, which Draco thinks is odd - of course he can see it, for how could he ever miss the crashing waves below them? - but then he realizes that George isn’t facing the sea. He turns round to look up at a beautiful cottage, its white walls embedded with seashells. He glances at George, who is looking at him with a question in his eyes.

“I can see the cottage,” Draco says. “Am I missing something?”

“No, I wasn’t sure if--” George starts, but the wind whips around and he has to stop, pull up the collar of his jacket. “Bill put a Fidelius Charm on it during the war to keep Death Eaters from finding it. I wasn’t sure if he removed it.”

“Oh,” Draco says. “Well, the Manor had a gate that only allowed in people with Dark Marks, so, you know. Bill’s not special.” George snorts, and then Draco follows him up the path to the door and into the house. A kind warmth envelops them and the scent of fresh bread fills the air. The ambient noise of the wind whistling and the ebb and flow of the sea becomes a low buzzing of voices. They make their way through a short, narrow hall, and stand at the entrance to the living room, watching the small crowd of people sitting and standing about the room. By the opposite wall, under a window, Fleur sits in a rocking chair, a small bundle in her arms. 

“George!” Bill exclaims suddenly, which causes all heads to turn toward the doorway where Draco and George stand. Draco instantly pulls his jacket - _George’s_ jacket - tighter around him, as if he could ever pass it off as his own. Bill leaps from the arm of the sofa, leaving Fleur and two people who can only be her parents behind as he crosses the room and pulls George into a tight embrace. Draco hears George congratulate Bill in a startlingly sincere tone, but all Draco can focus on at present are the faces staring at him, a decidedly _non_ -Weasley, and not even a Delacour. Fleur, at least, smiles at him and waves awkwardly, her hand positioned oddly under the baby in her arms. She leans over to talk to her parents on the sofa and her sister on the floor - Draco remembers Gabrielle, faintly, from the Triwizard Tournament, and finds himself struck now by how much she reminds him of Astoria Greengrass - and moments later he sees them smiling and waving at him as well. He’s raising his hand to wave back when--

“What is _he_ doing here?” Arthur Weasley says gruffly, getting to his feet. “George, why did you bring him here? This is a family occasion.”

“We invited him, Dad,” Bill says, a masterful balance in his tone between defensive and placating. 

“And if we’re being strict all of a sudden,” George says, clearly annoyed, “then Harry and Hermione shouldn’t be here either.” He walks past his father and heads over to Fleur, greets her family before crouching down to see the baby. Draco remains where he is, uncomfortable and anxious, trying to ignore the angry look that Arthur is still giving him. Molly suddenly appears from what must be the kitchen with a tray of _chaussons aux pommes_. 

“Draco!” she says happily. “And that must mean--” she scans the room before her eyes land on George, who grins at her briefly before going back to making funny faces at the newborn he’s holding. “Oh, wonderful!” Molly says, looking at Draco again. “Here, have a, er….”

“Apple turnover?” Draco says very quietly, so only Molly can hear, as he takes one from the tray.

She laughs and grabs him suddenly, hugs him, and whispers in his ear, “Please help with the Delacours. They speak very little English, and Fleur rarely sees fit to translate.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he whispers back, and she finally lets him go, smiling at him and shoving another pastry into his hand before making her way around the rest of the room with the food. Draco feels a hand on his back then.

“Come meet my daughter, Malfoy,” Bill says with a sleepy grin, appearing beside him. Bill guides him over to Fleur and George, who steps back so that Draco can get closer to Fleur and the baby he’s just handed back to her. 

“ _Bonjour, mon ami_ ,” Fleur says, voice soft and tired. She’s just as beautiful as ever, glowing perhaps even brighter than usual. Draco knows, just looking at her now, that she’s going to be a wonderful mother. He crouches next to her chair and smiles.

“ _Bonjour, belle dame_ ,” he says, miming kissing her hand, and looks down at the tiny round face peeking out of what appears to be half a dozen blankets. “ _Et toi aussi, mademoiselle_.” To Fleur again, he whispers, “What’s her name?”

“Victoire,” Fleur says. “To commemorate the significance of this day.” Victoire squirms and opens her eyes to reveal vivid blue. 

“What time was she born?” he hears George ask. 

“Oh! I wrote all the details down, hold on,” Bill says, looking around the room. “Ron, will you--thanks.” He takes the parchment from the air and reads it. “Born at 1:08am.” Draco can feel George tensing behind him, wishes he could just turn and hold him, hold his hand. Instead, he shifts on his feet so that his thigh touches George’s leg and hopes it’s enough for now.

The next hour and a half is considerably more social interaction than Draco was prepared for so soon after a dinner at the Burrow. Fleur's father, a stout man with a friendly face and a pointed beard, and mother, a tall and beautiful woman like Fleur, occupy much of his time with questions about his family in England and tales of his family in France. Together, they manage to patch most of the holes in each other's information: the non-magic Malfoi brother stayed behind in France while the magical one went on to England with an army, Anglicized his name, settled in the south on the same handsome piece of land that Draco grew up on, and severed all ties except that between two wine cellars. 

They keep thanking him for being so kind to their daughter, for helping her feel less alone. The praise seems utterly undeserved, but Draco can't bring himself to say that it's Fleur who's shown outrageous kindness to him, and mercy, even - it was Draco, after all, who orchestrated the Death Eaters’ invasion of Hogwarts that put her fiancé in a vicious fight with Greyback - so he allows Charlie to pull him into a debate with Percy about the ethics of placing bets on one’s first niece's future. He eventually finds himself in a corner, getting a moment alone, which turns out to accidentally be a moment with Granger and Potter. The three of them look at one another, and Draco thinks, in the singsong melody of his childhood, _One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn't belong._

“You look like you could use some air,” George says, with a tone which means that _he_ , actually, could use some air. Draco hasn't even been able to speak to him since they arrived, but he’s not quite surprised to see that George looks a bit ill as he approaches, like he’s got a migraine.

“Merlin, yes,” Draco says, pushing himself off the wall. It's not that dire for him, really, but George needs to get away from his family, needs to talk, so he plays up his own need, pretends George's desperation is his. George gives him a flash of a grateful look before heading for the hallway, gesturing for Draco to follow. 

“You finally going to shove Malfoy off a cliff, George?” comes Weasley’s awful voice from behind them on their way to the door. George turns around, so Draco does, too, uneasy about the way George’s jaw is set. “I knew this whole weird friendship was a long con.”

“Well, Weasley, if that _was_ his plan, then you’ve certainly gone and ruined it now, haven’t you?” Draco sneers, hoping to calm George’s tension. 

“Don’t be such a plonker, Ron,” Bill says, walking up beside Weasley and smacking him on the back of the head. He gives Draco and George a supportive nod as he shoves Weasley aside, says, “The sea air will be good for you. Stay warm, though.” George waves as he turns around again and continues walking. Draco follows suit, sees Bill glancing after them only when he’s closing the door behind him.

George and Draco walk through the garden toward the edge of the cliff, where George sits cross-legged in the grass, nearly at the edge. Draco sits down to his right, looks out at the sea. The air here is cold and salty, refreshing as it stings his skin. He zips the jacket he’s wearing all the way up to his neck, pulls the collar up like George did earlier, like George should be doing now. But George is just staring at the sea, shivering in the wind, and Draco doesn’t dare say anything before George is ready to speak, so he pulls his knees up to his chest, enjoys the sound of the waves crashing below them.

“I know she’s not replacing Fred,” George says eventually, louder than normal, so that Draco can hear him over the wind and sea. “The baby, I mean. Victoire.”

“I know you know that,” Draco says, scooting ever so slightly closer to George.

“And I don’t _feel_ that way, either,” George says. “I want that on the record.”

“Duly noted,” Draco says. George moves closer to him now, their sides touching, providing a sliver of warmth.

“Honestly, I think I’d feel this way if she was born at any time today,” George says.

“And what is ‘this way’ that you feel, exactly?” Draco asks. It takes George a few seconds to answer.

“Like I’ll never be able to celebrate her birthday,” he says, “and I’ll be a terrible uncle for it.” He takes a few deep breaths. Draco wants so badly to hold George’s hand, but he thinks they’re too close to the windows of Shell Cottage, is worried they’ll be spotted, so he nudges George’s elbow with his, taps his ankle against George’s knee. George glances at him, gives him a small, thankful smile. 

“The second of May is for Fred,” George continues. “It was meant to be for Fred forever, now. The one day I could mourn without everyone pestering me about it, because everyone else is mourning their own, too. But now, my niece is--I mean, did you see her?” He grins fully at Draco. “She’s _perfect_. And what kind of uncle am I if I can’t ever find it within myself to celebrate her birthday? How can I be so selfish? She’ll grow up hating me.”

“It’s not selfish to have boundaries like that, George,” Draco says, throwing caution to the cold wind and taking George’s hand in his. 

“Is that what that’s called?” George asks.

“‘Boundaries’? Yeah, it’s a type of one. Knowing that you can’t do something and drawing the line there,” Draco says. “And anyway, she’s not going to hate you. So what if you can’t celebrate her actual birthday? We don’t celebrate with each other on _our_ actual birthdays. We can do the same with her--er, you. You can do the same with her.” Draco bites his lip. “You’re the uncle, after all.”

“I think it’s pretty clear they want you around,” George says with a wry smile, turning look at him.

“Right,” Draco says, blushing, grateful for the fact that the chilly wind was already reddening his face. “I suppose. But, as I was saying, you--we--can just celebrate hers on the 3rd. Look, as long as she’s not old enough to understand the real reason, she’ll love it just because her birthday lasts two days, and then once she does know, she’ll love it because of what it means, and it will help her make sense of the fact that she’s named ‘Victory’ for a day that was so full of loss, too.” 

He squeezes George’s hand, brushing his thumb over George’s knuckles. “You’ll still be the coolest uncle ever, you dummy. That’s always been your fate. It just looks a bit different now.” He looks over at George, who’s still staring at him with a grin. “Oh my god, _what_?” Draco says. George shakes his head, looks down a bit.

“You just have a way of making things look better, is all,” George says, a blush rising to his own cheeks. Suddenly, despite the cold, Draco feels cozily warm, right down to his bones.


	9. Chapter 9

A week later, Draco and George return to Shell Cottage, where it's now only Bill, Fleur, a blue-eyed blob of a baby girl, and the Delacours. From what Draco can tell, Fleur’s father mostly cooks, makes sure the new parents don't have to worry about meals, ensures that Fleur’s energy and health is kept up; her mother mostly handles the baby things, gives Fleur advice on everything from breastfeeding to cleaning sick off of upholstery, teaches Bill some essential skills, like changing a nappy one-handed; and Gabrielle mostly talks to Fleur, provides moral support in the form of braiding her sister’s hair and speaking to her about anything besides the baby. All in all, it seems like a perfect setup. Draco can understand why Bill and Fleur don't particularly want Molly here for the time being.

“I love Mum, obviously, but you know how she is,” Bill is saying to George as they drink butterbeers on the sofa. Draco sits on the floor nearby and makes truly ridiculous faces into the little bassinet that holds Victoire, who doesn’t seem to have opinions on anything yet, or even many capabilities of reacting to outside stimuli at all, but she at least doesn’t cry when she’s looking at him, which is a great relief. 

“A rather controlling woman, indeed,” George agrees. “Did Fleur ever tell you how she tried to shoo her out of your life as you were lying maimed in the Hogwarts hospital wing? Hermione feverishly whispered every detail to me and Fred before your wedding. Fred nearly passed out from laughing.” Bill groans and George chokes on his own laugh at the memory. “But look! Against all odds, you barmy kids made it! And made a baby!” In the bassinet, Victoire happens to make a well-timed offended face.

“Excuse you,” Draco says to George with a haughty tone of scolding, “but her royal majesty would like to be referred to by her proper name.” George gasps dramatically and bows as well as he can while seated.

“My utmost apologies, your highness,” he says, blowing a kiss at Victoire. She stares blankly for several seconds before simply closing her eyes. “Yeah, seems about right.”

“Oi, I meant to ask you before,” Bill says to George, then pauses to offer a bottle of butterbeer to Draco as he stands and moves to sit on the loveseat where Fleur’s father left a large cheese plate before he went into the village down the hill for more groceries. Draco’s more accustomed to pairing cheese with wine, but he pops open the bottle and starts examining the plate for what might be a complementary cheese as Bill continues, “Last week, when Victoire was born in the middle of the night - why did you only respond to my Patronus after I sent it to Malfoy’s place?” 

Draco almost chokes on some of the best smoked gruyère he’s ever eaten. He swallows down half the butterbeer, eyes wide, to keep from coughing. He turns the briefest glance to George, who is rubbing at his own throat, probably to hide the blush that’s creeping up his chest, and pointedly not looking at Draco. _It’s too much, it’s too obvious_ , Draco thinks madly, taking a bite of goat cheese and kicking his foot out to give the bassinet a bit of a rock. _Lying is all in the subtleties! Gryffindors are useless at subtlety!_

“I went to his house after dinner to finish up an experiment for a new product I’m working on,” George says. “Ended up falling asleep on the couch.”

“You don’t do those experiments at your flat?” Bill asks.

“It was a potion,” Draco says. George glances at him with thankful eyes, nods at Bill while taking a long sip of butterbeer. “George is rubbish at potions, so I was handling it at home since I have more supplies there.” Bill hums, nodding slowly, giving Draco a long look. “While we’re on the subject,” Draco says, yearning to shift the attention, “how did you even know where to send the Patronus?”

“Oh,” Bill says, abruptly looking rather sheepish. “I convinced Percy to, er, bribe someone in the Ministry to find out where you lived.”

“And he _did it_?” George asks, impressed.

“Yeah, but now I owe him nearly a month’s salary,” Bill says with a grimace. “He finally got to a wizard in the Advocates Division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They’re public defenders, you know, so they barely make any money. Percy said the bloke was more than happy to go into the Records room and turn over a copy of Snape’s will.” Draco purses his lips, annoyed at this breach of his privacy. 

“Don’t worry, Malfoy,” Bill says, which Draco thinks is certainly easier said than done. “Nobody knows except Percy and me, and I doubt anyone else would even know to go to that Department to look for that kind of information on you.” After a moment, Draco nods, glances at George, desperate for a change in topic, which George beautifully provides.

“What else should we get Percy to bribe people for, d’you think?” he asks, poking Bill in the knee repeatedly until Bill smacks his hand. “Come on, let’s test his limits.” Draco looks down at Victoire, peacefully asleep in her bassinet, as George and Bill begin brainstorming, and makes a mental note to send Percy a letter of warning when he gets home.

\---

Draco and George spend the rest of the month visiting Shell Cottage at least once a week. Charlie is there, too, more often than not, evidently only ever needing a niece to coax him away from his dragons in Romania on a regular basis. (“Don’t tell Mum,” George says. “She’ll have us all married off and breeding - well, the straights among us, at least, you know.”) Dinners at the Burrow are more awkward than usual for Draco for awhile; without Bill and Fleur there at the table next to him, he’s just got George, and, when Arthur isn’t looking, Percy, who mutters his thanks to Draco for the warning. Annoyingly, Granger has taken to eyeing him when Weasley and Potter are otherwise occupied, which makes him feel uncomfortable and itchy, but he assumes that she’s got it in her head that he’s...well, Draco doesn’t actually know. Biding his time until his big opportunity to poison the Weasleys, perhaps, or preparing himself to curse them all one evening after dinner, or just generally up to no good, as always, he’s sure she’s thinking. It drives him rather mad, but luckily it only lasts through the end of May, and Bill and Fleur start coming round the Burrow for dinner again, and Draco is no longer so alone.

His birthday is spent at the Manor with his parents, Blaise, and Pansy: a nice dinner, wine and tea and pudding, expensive gifts in sleek wrapping, the decent and entertaining kind of conversation he’s accustomed to, shared with four of the five people he loves. He goes back to Spinner’s End afterward, far later in the night than he planned, to the fifth person, who’s already fallen asleep in his jeans, and the next day, they celebrate together, the two of them, with kissing and two first edition books and sex and rhubarb pie. Draco spends the next week reading the books he’s received this year - the one from Pansy about wandcraft in the islands of Polynesia, having just returned from there after another trip with Luna Lovegood and, this time, Longbottom; and the two from George, very dry and technical volumes about methods of extracting wand wood from trees. He leafs through his journal full of notes from all of his research, revisits Ollivander with additional questions, and leaves with a dozen more pages of recorded answers, even the ones he doesn’t like. 

He’s been wondering about the limitations that Ollivander has set for himself and, by virtue of being the quintessential wandmaker throughout the British Isles, for wandmaking in general in this part of Europe, and even beyond the continent. Ollivander only uses a few types of wood and even fewer types of cores. He insists that he perfected the wandmaking process in this region, that it was much messier before he took over his father’s business, that he streamlined it and made things easier, cleaner, better with his improvements. Draco's sure that's all true, but he also thinks that wandmaking may have lost some of its viscera because of it, that perhaps it's something that _should_ be messy and complicated, that it's only truly worthwhile if it leaves the maker raw.

He's read about wandcrafting in countries far beyond these rainy islands, within cultures he never knew existed before, and he’s been marveling at the diversity of the process, at all the trees across the planet that bowtruckles live in, at all the options for magical cores, at the varying significances of wand lengths and rigidities and designs. The only aspect of wandmaking that remains steadfast is the use of blood magic. Aside from that requirement, ancient and daunting as it is, the universe of the craft seems to vibrate with endless potential. Draco finds that he’s rather in love with it. He can't think of a single reason why he shouldn't confront each and every possibility.

“That's quite nervy of you,” Meriweather says.

“Is it?” Draco asks.

“I don't think you would've been so bold two years ago,” she says. “Hell, not even one year ago.” Draco mulls it over for a moment.

“I suppose you’re right,” he says.

“What's changed?” Meriweather asks.

“Well, the obvious answer is George,” Draco says, blushing just a bit. “He's the epitome of a Gryffindor, which is absolutely maddening, but it - _he_ \- makes me feel like anything is possible.” He straightens his back then, squares his shoulders. “Besides, sometimes you’ve got to do whatever's necessary to get what you want, right? What kind of Slytherin would I be if I didn't exhaust every path in the chase?” Meriweather smiles.

“I suppose you’re right.”

\---

June is nearly done when Draco gets a strange tingling in his fingertips. 

He notices it in the middle of the day, in the back room of the shop as he checks on a potion that's been brewing for two days. It's so slight that it may as well not be there at all, except that, stock still, staring down at his hands, he knows exactly what it means. 

He slowly removes his wand from his pocket. From the barely-thereness of the sensation, he knows it won't be much. He tries to remember a basic spell, something he learned in his first year at Hogwarts.

He goes to the door, closes and locks it, then, with his heart pounding, taps the doorknob with his wand.

“ _Alohomora_ ,” he whispers. 

Nothing happens at first. Yet he knows, somehow, not to feel disappointed. He kneels down, puts his ear mere centimeters from the lock, and listens.

Something is working in there. He can hear, even above the blood rushing round his head, faint, slow clicking sounds. It reminds him of the clocks that his father likes to study, of all the gears he’s heard turning over the decades he’s spent in his father's office while Lucius tinkers. It sounds like that, but as if honey has been poured into the lock, several terrifying seconds between each click. Draco begins counting them. Eight, nine, ten, eleven.

At fourteen, something sounds final, and Draco sits back on his heels, staring at the door. He reaches out to the doorknob, holds it still for what must be a full minute, paralyzed with fear and doubt, and finally, he turns it.

The door opens.

George is on the other side of it, looking concerned, worry on his face becoming more evident when he sees Draco kneeling, intense.

“What's going on?” he asks. “Why’d you close the door? You never close this door, even when I tell you to because customers might wander in.” Draco looks up at him. George's brow furrows further. “Are you alright? Are you ill?”

“I need to start making my own wand,” Draco says with utmost clarity of purpose. “It's time.”

\---

Draco consults with Pansy and Luna - at the same time, which is odd, and at the same lunch with Blaise, who looks at all three of them like they’re giving him a headache - about the hundred or so different species of bowtruckles around the world. They show him photos they took themselves of a fair few on their own excursions, and illustrations in books of most of the others, and he takes notes on what each one likes to eat, how best to win their favor. “It’s for work. George has got me doing all the hard research for him. Typical,” Draco says when Luna asks about his sudden curiosity in little wooden stickmen. She seems to accept his answer easily enough, but he can tell she knows there’s more to it. He wonders, as they’re dispersing from the table, if this is one of the ways that her captivity in the Malfoy Manor changed her, if it made her more cautious about pushing people for explanations when she already felt she knew the answer, if it made her realize that sometimes it’s alright to be satisfied with her own knowledge and instincts as they are rather than bring in more options. He didn’t know her well before those Christmas holidays, but he got to know her then, spent hours every day in the cellar with her for those weeks before going back to school, and he thinks, perhaps, that she escaped with more harshly-earned shrewdness and wisdom, that the experience sharpened more than her mind.

He consults with Longbottom next, asks where forests with beech trees can be found, produces a gigantic book of atlases so Longbottom can point out locations. Eastern United States and southeastern Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam. Mostly Europe, though, as far north as Norway and beyond Turkey to the east, extending to the Balkans. Longbottom presses his finger to Denmark and looks up at Draco, asks why he wants to know any of this. “Wouldn’t you rather be talking to my plants than to me?” Draco answers dryly. Longbottom rolls his eyes and turns back to the garden but says that Draco’s not actually bad company, when it comes down to it. Draco wonders, not for the first time, if the war gave more to Longbottom than it took, if the bravery planted in him by the torture of his parents would ever have even sprouted without the prison escape of Bellatrix Lestrange, if the fact that he’s chosen this calm life when he could’ve been seeking more danger and action and glory means that he is more courageous than any of his classmates. Draco barely knows Longbottom, only ever knew him before as a target for bullying, but he’s been here every few Saturdays for a year now, tending to every plant in Draco’s garden, pulling some back from the brink of death even, and Draco thinks that, honestly, when it comes down to it, Longbottom’s not actually bad company either.

Draco stares at the maps, makes notes in his journal, and sets it all against a calendar to do his best to plan a loose schedule for these particular travels. He can’t be sure how long it will take in each forest, so he can only estimate most of this, but he feels better, having a skeleton of a plan. George comes up behind him, wraps his arms around Draco’s chest, and sets his chin on Draco’s shoulder, something he’s only tall enough to do when Draco’s sitting.

“Dunno why I thought you _wouldn’t_ be all Hermione about this,” George says with amusement, looking down at Draco’s work. Draco sighs.

“ _Why_ must you insist on comparing me to that wretched know-it-all?” he asks. George’s laugh tickles at Draco’s neck.

“Because the two of you have quite a lot in common,” George says. “In fact, if the two of you ever become friends, then the rest of the world should keep their wands up in case you decide to take over everything, because you two could do it in a heartbeat.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, in case wandmaking doesn't work out,” Draco says, scribbling _Taiwan_ into a Saturday in August. George releases him and levitates a seat from the dining table over to beside Draco, pulls it close to the desk to get a better look at Draco’s notes.

“How do you know what type of tree it has to be?” he asks, running his finger over an illustration of a beech tree in one of Draco’s open books.

“Different woods hold different characters,” Draco says, setting down his quill so that he can be sure to articulate this well. “The character of the wand wood is often indicative of certain traits of its owner, and can be a predictor of the owner's future and best magical talents. Do you follow me?”

“I’ve got that much, yeah,” George says.

“Right,” Draco says. “So, for example, certain types of wood are more suitable for warriors or duelists - blackthorn, aspen, yew, red oak. The Dark Lord had a yew wand.”

“Huh,” George says, curious. “So does Ginny.” Draco raises his eyebrows.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” he says. “My mother had a yew wand as well, before it got destroyed in the fiendfyre. Yew wouldn’t choose a timid witch. People tend to say that owners of yew wands are more attracted to Dark Arts, but it’s just as likely that they’re fierce protectors of other people.” George grins.

“So what else is there?” he asks.

“Some wands are more loyal than others, depending on the wood,” Draco says. “Some refuse to perform magic that seems outside the owner’s character. Some will never allow themselves to be mastered by anyone but their original owner, even if another person properly wins it. Some wands favor the bold, some the self-sacrificing, some the insecure, some the adventurous, some the intelligent, some those with vision and ambition, some the stately.” He cracks a smile. “My father’s wand - before the Dark Lord stole it and destroyed it in battle - was elm. Elm is partial to people with natural skill but also with _presence_ and _dignity_ ,” he says with flourishing gestures and dramatic tones. George rolls his eyes with a laugh.

“Seems fitting,” he says. 

“And still some wand woods are more suited to certain kinds of magic than others,” Draco says. “Ebony and fir are particularly good for transfiguration work, rowan for defensive spells, hawthorn for healing magic, willow for charms.”

“Your wand’s hawthorn, yeah?” George says. “Didn’t you want to be a Healer, once upon a time?”

“Yeah,” Draco says, “but I didn’t know about the wand wood significance then. I just knew I couldn’t exist gainfully unemployed like my father. I wanted to _do_ something. Snape would never let me pretend otherwise, especially in my career counseling appointment in fifth year.” He picks up his hawthorn wand from the desk and twirls it in his fingers. “Healing offered the kind of daily challenges I thought that I would find interesting. Plus, if you’re good enough at it, then you can get away with having a poor bedside manner, which, obviously, I would have.” George laughs. 

“And what about my wand, then?” he asks, pulling it from his pocket and placing it on the desk. “What’s walnut mean?” Draco looks at him and smiles.

“You’ll love this,” he says. “Walnut wands are adaptable and versatile. They work best with extremely smart and innovative owners, particularly inventors.” George’s whole face lights up, his grin taking over his features. 

“You talk about wands like they’re alive,” he says, delighted but thoughtful. Draco considers it for a moment, then gives a small shrug.

“I certainly believe they’ve got personalities,” he says. “Perhaps they’re not sentient but, I mean, they’re capable of making decisions. Wands choose the wizard, right? And they have secrets. They show loyalty. They offer help. They adapt. It’s a relationship, you know, between a wizard or witch and their wand. A friendship. We learn from wands just as they learn from us.” He chews absentmindedly at his thumbnail. “It seems disrespectful to speak of them as if they're anything less than alive.” He looks at George then, sees the small smile on his face, the one he only gives to Draco. “What?”

“It's just...I’m glad to hear you sounding so passionate about this,” George says, shaking his head. “I know you’re focused on making your own wand now, but once you do, and once you get your magic back, you should stop joking about becoming a wandmaker and actually do it.” Draco scoffs. “I’m serious,” says George. “You probably would have been a good Healer, but you’d never be happy, I don't think, because you wouldn't truly care about it. It’d just be something to do, get you out of the Manor. But this wand stuff….” He looks down at the desk, all the open books and journals full of research, and finishes, “You _really_ love all this, Draco.”

Draco ducks his head to hide the smile growing on his face. “I’ll think about it,” he says. George hums.

“So you never actually answered my question,” he says. “Why beech? Why not another hawthorn wand?” Draco bites his lip.

“Well, I...I think I’ve maybe...outgrown hawthorn,” he says uncertainly. “Or it just...isn’t for me, anymore. At least, I hope it’s not.” He picks up one of his journals and flips back to a page crowded with writing, looks closely at the bit in red ink. “There was a wandmaker in Germany who said that hawthorn wands are strange and contradictory and full of paradoxes. A hawthorn wand’s best suited to an owner whose nature is one of conflict, or else one who’s enduring inner turmoil.”

“Whoa,” George says quietly.

“Yeah,” says Draco, frowning. “That’s why I think - and hope - that it’s not mine any longer. Beech wands, on the other hand, are best matched with those rich in understanding and experience. They perform very weakly for the intolerant and narrow-minded, and they favor wisdom.” He closes the journal and reaches toward George, traces the beech tree illustration with his fingertips. “It just _feels_ like it’s the right one,” he says softly.

“Alright. Makes sense,” George says after a long moment. “Look, I know it’s not exactly in a Slytherin’s nature to go with gut instinct like that, but for what it’s worth, I’d bet the shop that you’re right.” He slides his hand over the open book and takes Draco’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “Where do we start, then?”

\---

They start in Turkey on the first Saturday of July.

George insists they restrict it to only one day a week, which Draco, in one of his moments of utmost self-awareness, agrees to, knowing it will be better for him in the long run. If he’s allowed more than once per week, then he’ll get singularly and madly obsessive, which will lead to crushing disappointment with every day he doesn't achieve his goal, which will lead then to a manic spiral ever downward. He's been here before. He learned, after sixth year, the full truth of what his ancestry provided to him. He has all the dedication and focus of a Malfoy, all the compulsion and instability of a Black, all the genetic tendency toward a general, vague state of _unhinged_ of both. It means that he won't sleep or eat; it means that his routine will be thoroughly fucked up; it means that all of his progress from the last two years will be lost. 

So he and George only travel on Saturdays. They get by on tourist permits forged from a single one that Draco snatched from Granger’s work bag when everyone else was cooing over Victoire, and George hires Percy to run the shop on Saturdays, which Percy is quite happy to do. They work through each country’s beech forests slowly, methodically, Draco marking off their visited forest space on hand-drawn maps so he doesn't miss a single tree. He places his hands on them, breathes, listens to them, tries to feel something. Ollivander told him that he would know the right tree before all of that, just from looking, but nevertheless he feels compelled to do it, like he’s laying a foundation, almost practicing. 

By the middle of August, they’ve gotten through Turkey, Mexico, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, and some of China. Draco keeps expecting disappointment after every fruitless day, but it never comes. Instead, he seems to become slightly more hopeful with each branchless return to Spinner’s End, the knowledge that he does have a tree out there waiting for him, and he’s only getting closer to it. He’ll find it, eventually. 

He has to.

\---

“The thing about you that most everyone would be surprised by - and I don’t even think you truly realize it - is that you have a very definite sense of right and wrong, of good and bad,” Meriweather tells him. “I think it gets in your way sometimes.”

“How so?” Draco asks. He’s known this about himself for awhile now, often has a difficult time talking himself out of it, convincing himself that it isn’t accurate. 

“The world simply doesn’t work that way, Draco,” Meriweather says kindly, brushing her fringe from her eyes. “There’s more than black and white. Most of us, if not all of us, live in the gray spaces in between.”

“Maybe, but most people don’t see it that way, do they?” Draco says. “They look at it like I do. Black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.” He swallows, looks down. “People assign categories.”

“Do you?” she asks. Draco sighs.

“Bad: the Dark Lord, Bellatrix Lestrange, Greyback, Wormtail,” he says, reciting from the list already in his head. “Good: the Weasleys, Potter, Granger, Longbottom, Luna Lovegood.”

“And where does that leave the Malfoys, then?” Meriweather says. “Where does that leave Snape?”

“We’re in the middle,” Draco says, irritated. “I know where we reside. I know where I was born. I’m not daft, but, look--” he huffs. “I’ll take your example of Snape, alright? Snape was capital-b Bad - we all thought so - until a capital-g Good person, Potter, decided that he was actually _not all bad_ , which meant that he was good, and because everyone listens to Good people, Potter’s got everybody ignoring that Snape was a bitter bully who made Potter’s life and the lives of countless other students completely miserable and frightening, simply because it turns out that he did something - a major thing, don’t get me wrong - that allowed good to triumph over evil.” Draco shakes his head and rolls his eyes, looks out the window down into the garden, where a peacock roams on the hedge, surveying a kingdom.

“It matters what people think of one,” he says. “I’m not a good person, so society rules dictate that I must then be a bad person. Nevermind that I was a child trying to protect my family, and nevermind that I no longer believe in blood purity. No one will ever look at me and see nuance. I’ll always be the choice I made when I was sixteen.”

“It does matter what people think, yes,” Meriweather says, “but that’s not all that matters. What do you think of yourself?” Draco stares out the window in silence for several minutes, thinking, arguing with himself, rationalizing compassion, before finally coming to an answer. 

“On my best days,” he says softly, “in my best moments, I believe that I’ve got a good heart, at the bottom of everything.” He looks at Meriweather. “But what does it count for if nobody else sees it?” She has no solution for him, no satisfactory answer. She says that he’ll have to find it himself, that it will come to him eventually, and he hopes it does. He hopes it does.

It has to.

George and Draco are at Calliope’s house a few days later for their usual Sunday film night. This evening, it’s a film musical that Draco’s seen already, watched with Calliope before he and George began to spend time together. He related to a relatively minor character back then - a blond 17-year-old, snide and condescending and under the clearly false impression that he knows what he’s doing, making bad decisions in the midst of a brewing racist war - to a rather uncomfortable degree, so much that he was distracted from the overall beauty of the story, the entire real romance of it. But he sits next to George now, watches the black-on-blue silhouettes of Fräulein Maria and Captain von Trapp serenading one another, and feels George squeezing his hand tighter. Maria sings, gentle-voiced, about her wicked, miserable past, and Draco’s eyes sting.

It’s later than usual when they leave Calliope’s - the film is so much longer than most that it requires two video cassettes and an intermission - and once they’ve locked the door behind them and gone upstairs, they only have a chance to remove their shoes and socks before George pushes Draco back onto the bed. He undresses Draco slowly, teasing and soft, kisses him until both their mouths are swollen and red, until Draco feels wiped blank of all worry, until all he can think of is the heat and grounding weight of George’s body on his, the placement of George’s hands on him, the reassuring _Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could_ refrain playing over in his mind.

August’s final Saturday finds them on Prince Edward Island, searching through beech trees once more. Draco hums rather mindlessly, not quite paying attention to anything but the texture of the bark under his palms. He only realizes the tune when he hears George, walking next to him, singing under his breath, “For here you are, standing there, loving me.” Draco glances at George, a smirk playing on his lips, and George grins and rolls his eyes a bit when he looks back.

“‘s your fault it’s stuck in my head to begin with, you prat,” George says, knocking Draco’s elbow with his own. 

“Mmhmm,” Draco says knowingly. He presses his hand to another tree and smiles, humming again.

\--- 

It’s their one year anniversary - they’ve actually _made it_ to one whole year, Draco can’t stop pausing in awe at the wonder of it all day - and they’re going out on a proper date, to a real restaurant, around other people. It’s a terribly fancy place in Wizarding Croydon, one where Draco’s parents have celebrated many an anniversary themselves, and he knows how busy it always is, how impossible to get a table.

“Don’t worry your pointy face about it,” George says, fixing his tie in the mirror. “I made a reservation three months ago.” Draco stops then in the middle of tying his dress shoes, sits up and looks over at George, whose face has gone quite red.

“You were banking on us getting here,” Draco says, somewhat amazed. George’s ear turns pink.

“Yeah, well, we got through spring without you getting fed up and dumping me,” he says, frowning at his reflection before turning toward Draco, “so I figured we’d probably be alright.” Draco doesn’t bother fighting his grin.

Later, when Draco looks back on this evening as one that changed everything, he’ll realize that he should have known to anticipate something bad happening when they checked in with the hostess. As it is, Draco and George arrive at the restaurant, and George smiles at the young brown-skinned witch with dark wavy hair cascading over her shoulders, tells her, “Weasley,” and she looks at her chart and asks, “Party of two or seven?”

Draco and George stare at her blankly. 

“S--sorry?” George says, sounding rather choked.

“I’ve got two reservations for Weasley at 6:30,” the hostess says, bored and unconcerned. “Party of two and party of seven. Are you the whole two or are you two of the seven?” 

“We’re the two,” George says, eyes wide, glancing around over his shoulders. “Can you tell me--are we seated near the other Weasley party, by any chance?” The hostess waves her wand to levitate two menus as she looks at her chart again, says that they’re not even on the same floor, and George’s eyes remain widened but he follows her to their table, clasping Draco’s hand all the while. 

“Oh my god, I can’t _believe_ this,” George mutters, burying his head in his hands, as the hostess walks away once they’re seated. “Ron and Percy talked to me about this ages ago. We all chipped in a gorgeous Galleon to treat Mum and Dad to a nice, fancy dinner sometime in September, but they hadn’t decided where yet, and Bill and Charlie had already said they couldn’t be there for it so I didn’t feel bad opting out either, and then they never bothered to tell me when or where exactly--”

“George, it’s alright,” Draco says, a calmness settling over him even as George works himself up into a mild panic. He reaches across the table and holds George’s hand. “We arrived before them, and we couldn’t see this table from the door, right? So they’re not going to see us when they check in, and you heard the hostess - they’re not even going to be on this floor. No one’s going to spot us here, babe. It’ll be a lovely night.” George’s shoulders relax and his cheeks pink a bit.

“Thank you,” he says in a low singsong tone, and then, with a smirk, “I quite like when you call me ‘babe.’” Draco rolls his eyes, but his response is cut off by a short wizard who appears to offer them wine, and then they’re discussing the menu and kicking playfully at each other’s feet under the table. 

Seated beside a tall westward window, Draco and George get to watch a beautiful sunset as they eat dinner and drink wine, and if, over crème brûlée, Draco gets a bit lost in the way the blue of the sky matches that of George’s eyes, then at least no one else is there to witness it. As they’re leaving, Draco thinks that he catches a glimpse of his own parents in a corner of the opposite side of the restaurant, but George’s hand slips into Draco’s in a promising way, and Draco lets himself be distracted, lets himself think such a notion ridiculous, lets himself get pulled outside onto the cobblestone street. They’re passing all of the restaurant windows when Draco checks his watch, realizes they’ve got another six minutes and thirteen seconds until their Portkey back to George’s flat - George refused to store his anniversary gift for Draco at Spinner’s End - and steers George out of the street itself, shoves him against the brick wall just past the restaurant and kisses him fervently. 

“Happy anniversary, Weasley,” Draco says when he pulls away, in a snide, callous voice that he hasn’t used to speak to George in well over a year now. George grins, grabs the collar of Draco’s shirt and spins them around so that it’s Draco against the wall now.

“Happy anniversary, Malfoy,” George says with a sneer, giving Draco enough time to smile before returning them to their enthusiastic kiss, George’s hands in Draco’s hair, Draco’s splayed across George’s back. Seconds pass, minutes perhaps, and somewhere in the part of his mind that isn't thoroughly occupied with George's mouth, he hears voices growing louder, as if approaching ever nearer. They're familiar voices, somehow, and nasty alarm bells ring off in that little unoccupied space in Draco’s head, but he ignores them for the soft curl of George's fingers against the back of his neck, and the sweet sigh of--

“George?! _Malfoy?!_ ” 

George shoves himself away from Draco like Draco hit him with a repelling jinx, fast and terrified. Draco stands as if frozen to the wall with a sticking charm. He's sure that his eyes can't possibly have ever been wider than they are right now, taking in the sight of five Weasleys, Potter, and Granger, their faces portraying a range of dangerously unpleasant emotions. Draco wishes the earth would split open below his feet and swallow him up. 

“What is this? What in Merlin's name is going on here?!” Molly screeches.

“Mum, I--” George starts.

“Has Malfoy got you under a Curse?” Weasley asks earnestly, loudly. “George, are you Imperiused right now?”

“Why on earth would I use an Unforgivable Curse on my boyfriend, you absolute buffoon?” Draco snaps. He sees Granger hiding behind Weasley and Potter, cringing but silent. _So she did know_ , he thinks bitterly.

“Your _boyfriend_?!” Ginny shouts, her angry face almost as red as her hair. “George, please tell us he’s lying! He has to be lying!”

“Of course he’s lying!” Potter says, unsurprisingly unable to resist jumping into a confrontation. Draco rolls his eyes so dramatically that he gets an instant headache, although he’s willing to concede that was likely inevitable anyway, given the circumstances.

“He's not lying!” George yells. “He's--I’m--we’re together. We’ve _been_ together!”

“Christ,” Percy bites out. “How long has this been going on?!”

But George doesn't get to even attempt an answer, for at this moment, Draco's mother and father round the corner and set their eyes on the scene before them. Everyone remains still for several long seconds, laughter dying on Draco's parents’ faces, until his father fixes a nasty lip curl on his and drawls, superiority dripping from every word, “Draco, what exactly has led to these people yelling at you in the street like wild animals?”

“ _Your son_ has just been caught snogging my George,” Arthur says lowly, dangerous, his furious eyes staring daggers into Lucius, who doesn't manage to hide his confusion before it shows fully on his face. “He claims George is his _boyfriend_.”

“Surely not!” Lucius says with a scoff, but Draco can hear the uncertainty, the fear in his father's voice. “This is all simply a grave misunderstanding - not surprising, given the combined intellect among you.”

“Draco and George are merely friends,” Draco's mother cuts in defensively, her voice loud in her obvious need to make its words true. “My son would never--”

“It's true, Mother,” Draco says, glancing at George, who appears to be growing paler by the second. 

“ _No!_ ” Lucius exclaims after a moment. Draco winces. “No, I do not accept this!”

“Draco, this is a poor joke to play on--” Narcissa starts.

“That's it! It's a joke!” Molly interrupts, looking desperately from George to Draco. “Another one of George's pranks! Right?”

“It's not a joke!” Draco cries, finally moving from the wall with the familiar feeling of anxiety curling within him, reaching up to grab hold of his ribs. “Why would I joke about something like this?”

“If it's not a prank, then it's true,” Weasley says, drawing his wand and holding it up tentatively, his arm shaking with helpless rage and confusion, sparking a new fear that jumps immediately to Draco’s throat, “and if it's true, then--then--”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Put your wand away!” George shouts, just as Granger leaps forward and tugs Weasley’s arm down, shrieking at him to be reasonable. It sets off a round of screaming chaos. 

Draco’s mother turns wild eyes on Weasley and begins yelling about him threatening her son. Ginny and Potter jump to Weasley’s defense with complementary undignified roars. Molly screeches her anger as Lucius and Arthur narrow in on each other, gritting out hateful accusations and their own threats. Under it all, Percy and Granger rather weakly demand that everyone calm down. Draco watches it unfold, clutching at his chest as he feels anxiety gaining ground in his ribcage, and he turns toward George, needing to convey his panic, but what he sees causes it to retreat.

George is sunk to the street in a crouch, hands grasping feebly at his chest and neck, shallow breaths wheezing through him as his eyes go unfocused and watery. A sudden clarity overcomes Draco, a singular vision in the midst of this mayhem, and he’s at George’s side in a flash of a moment, knelt down to pull George’s hands from his own neck. It knocks George off balance, sends him to the ground with a thud, which catches the attention of George’s father, who turns his shouting toward Draco now.

“What are you doing to my son?” he yells, rushing forward and grabbing Draco’s elbow. 

“Don’t touch me!” he growls, jerking out of Arthur’s grasp and taking one of George’s hands in his, placing it to his chest as he presses his own to George’s. He tries to start the deep breathing that George needs, but it’s no use with the bedlam around them. The screaming only continues to grow louder, more alarming and edging nearer to them, accusations and defenses flying. Draco can’t concentrate, can’t even hope for George to be able to focus, and he feels a crack splinter across the surface of something inside him as he takes a breath, leans in close to George and whispers, “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. Just give me a second.” He pauses long enough for George’s eyes to meet his, for George to give him a single, slight nod, and then he lets the thing inside him fracture.

“ _SHUT UP!_ ” he bellows, livid. 

A blessed, stunned silence befalls them. George’s labored breathing is abruptly evident to more than just Draco. A flurry of worried mutterings replace the ear-splitting screaming of just moments ago. 

“What’s happening to him?” Molly says, quiet and urgent.

“It’s a panic attack,” Narcissa says in a hushed tone, and Draco spares a moment to be thankful for his mother, for her understanding, for her fondness, even now, of George, before he turns his attention to George fully.

“George, listen to me,” he says softly. George meets Draco’s eyes again, and Draco sees how red and wet George’s eyes are, feels his heart break at the sight. “Remember that night in the Forbidden Forest?” he whispers. “Follow my breathing, yeah? Just like then.” George nods jerkily, and Draco breathes in deep, exhales slowly, deliberately. He feels George’s wild heartbeat begin to steady, and as George’s own breathing returns to normal, Draco glances down at his watch.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks. George nods once. Draco glances briefly and wordlessly at the Portkey a few meters away and back to George, who nods again, barely perceptible. He reaches into his pocket with a shaky hand.

“‘Get out of here’?” Weasley, Ginny, and Molly screech in unison.

“Draco, you cannot simply _leave_ ,” Draco’s father says, imploring, anger and disbelief returning to his voice.

“I hope you don’t think we’re just letting you two disappear after dropping news like this!” Arthur shouts. 

Draco, his eyes never leaving George, their hands still on one another’s chests, can’t resist sneering, “Watch us,” as George says, “Accio Portkey.” Draco reaches out with his free hand and he and George catch the old mead bottle and disappear amid renewed yelling. 

\---

The moment they land in George’s flat, George sits down on the edge of the bed and drops his head to his hands. Draco hurries to the kitchen for a glass of water, which George downs in only a few gulps. Draco takes the empty glass from him and looks from George, head in his hands again, to the door and back to George again.

“Do you want another glass?” he asks quietly.

“No,” George says, his voice raw.

“Right,” says Draco. He sets the glass down on the bedside table and then immediately wishes he didn’t. With nothing in his hands, he’s only now realizing that he feels awkward and unsure, doesn’t know what to say or do in this moment. Something has changed now, something that makes him feel off balance and unsteady. He’s not used to feeling this way around George, hasn’t been for a long time. He hates it.

“I’m not sure what to do here,” he admits quietly. “The way I see it, however, we have a few options for the short-term. Do you want to...to talk? Or make out? Or drink? Or fuck? All of the above? Other? I’m also open to any permutations thereof, if you’d like to pick and choose.”

“I want to be alone,” George says, so soft that Draco barely hears it. He blinks.

“You want to be alone?” he repeats. He can’t have heard George properly, but--

“Yes, I want to be alone.” George’s voice is louder now, more sure. It makes Draco sway on his feet. He gazes blankly about the room.

“So you...you want me to….?”

“Leave, Draco, yes,” George snaps, never raising his head. “I want to be alone, and I can’t be alone if you’re here, now can I, so yes, I want you to leave.” 

Draco stares at George’s body, unbelievable exhaustion etched in its lines. There’s a chill in his insides despite the angry heat taking over his skin right now. He _yearns_ to scream at George, to rage and yell at him - how dare George force him away at a time like this? How dare George act as if he’s the only one affected by this development? Doesn’t George know how cruel he’s being, how hurtful this is? But he closes his mouth as soon as he opens it, thinks of Meriweather and of the months he spent working with George when George was still “Weasley” to him, biting his tongue in the face of ridicule and insults and anger. He did it then, when he didn’t care about George, or what George thought of him, or preserving what he had with George. He can do it now, too.

Doesn’t mean he has to leave quietly, though. 

He doesn’t quite _storm out_ , but it is close. He trods out of George’s flat down the stairs to the shop, through the door out into Diagon Alley. He turns right, means to walk down the road for a bit, but then remembers that it’s dangerous for him here alone, in the dark, without magic. So he turns around and makes for the Leaky Cauldron, exits into Muggle London without a second thought. 

The night is lively there, loud and colorful and crowded. He walks for nearly an hour, turning every once in awhile, crossing roads, pausing in front of a pub or shop or nightclub here and there. He can barely hear his own thoughts over the blaring music bleeding onto the sidewalks, the cars speeding up and braking in the streets next to him, the numerous groups of people jostling him with their delighted bursts of laughter and shrill happy screaming. He’s thankful for it, actually, because right now all of his thoughts seem to be pathetic variants on _What if this is the end? What if George and I are through?_ and he’d just as soon like to not be able to stew with those. He keeps looking back as he walks, hoping to see George running after him, listening for an Apparition crack that might bring George to him again. George isn’t there, though, isn’t ever calling for him from across the street or rushing to catch up to him, so at 9:52, he turns down a darkened alley, sticks out his wand, and boards the Knight Bus.

As Draco approaches Spinner’s End, he sees George sitting outside the door, leaning against it and hugging his knees, and Draco feels a little lurch of hope in his chest, a spark of relief. George must hear his footsteps, looks up, and Draco is pleased to watch a reflection of his own comfort bloom on George's face. It doesn’t completely vanish the anger with George that he felt an hour ago, but he’s honestly surprised at how much it does alleviate. 

“I think the house might be connected to your emotions,” George says, standing up as Draco reaches him. “It wouldn’t let me in, no matter what spell I used to unlock the door.” Draco makes a noncommittal sound.

“Sounds exactly like something Snape would’ve done to the place,” he says, voice flat, removing a key from his pocket. “Suppose I inherited that, too.” George gives him a weak smile. The two of them stand there at the door, looking at each other awkwardly, unsure.

“I’d understand if you don’t want me to come in,” George says quietly. Draco bites his lip and looks away from George, sets his eyes on the doorknob.

“It depends on the purpose of your entrance, to be honest,” he says, twirling the key in his hand. “If this is...if we’re--if we’re over, then I...I hope you know me well enough to know that I can’t do, like, breakup sex, so we can just have that conversation out here and then--”

“Draco, I don’t want us to be over,” George says earnestly. Draco looks up again to see that George’s eyes are wide and rather shiny. “That’s not why I’m here.” Draco holds his gaze for a few moments before nodding and finally unlocking the door. George follows him inside, lights the whole house with a wave of his wand, and they wordlessly climb up the stairs, the lamps dimming as they pass by them. In the bedroom, Draco closes the door and locks it with his wand, waits there with his ear to the wood until he hears the last slow click. George is standing by the bed when Draco turns around, looking quite like he’s not sure if he has the right to sit on it, so Draco does instead, toes off his shoes and walks across the room to sit on the bed directly in front of George. He looks up into George’s tired face and takes his hand.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” George says, squeezing Draco’s fingers gently. “I did need to be alone, but I shouldn’t have made you leave or been so cruel about it. I wanted you to come back the moment I heard the shop door shut. I’m sorry for chasing you away.” Draco nods, brings George’s hand to his lips for a quick kiss, grins against George’s skin when he huffs out a relieved laugh.

“I suppose we were rather foolish to think that our families would never find out,” Draco says, releasing George’s hand.

“Or would be immediately accepting if they did,” George says. 

“We have to talk to them tomorrow, before it gets worse,” says Draco. George sighs and nods in agreement. 

“Yeah, I’ll arrange it at the shop. Dead lucky we’re closed tomorrow, I guess,” he says. He reaches out and pets a soothing hand through Draco’s hair, musses the neat pomade through to the nape of Draco’s neck, stroking the shorter sides with his thumb. Draco holds himself back from keening, just barely, because George still looks a bit sad, but then--

“This evening didn’t really go as I planned,” George says, the ghost of a mischievous glint in his eyes. Draco schools the corners of his mouth into neutrality for the time being.

“Oh really?” he says, thickly. “What exactly were you planning?” George smirks down at him. Draco swallows, heat blossoming in his belly.

“Well, I imagined you sucking me off when we got home, and then I thought we’d have some more fun with the pinwheel,” George says. Draco shudders.

“A decent outline of a plan, but lacking in specifics,” he says, as sternly as he can while already unbuckling George’s belt and licking his lips. “Typical Gryffindor.” George’s hand in Draco’s hair rolls into a fist suddenly, tugging just slightly, making Draco’s breath go pleasantly shallow.

“I think you’ll find that I’m actually quite meticulous,” George says. “Would you perhaps like some more details?”


	10. Chapter 10

The next evening, after a long day of restocking merchandise and cleaning the shop, George and Draco open the doors for George’s parents, Bill, Percy, Weasley, Ginny, Potter, Granger, and Draco’s parents. The presence of Potter and Granger makes Draco’s skin crawl, but the weary look Bill gives him almost makes up for it. Lucius and Narcissa trail in after the Weasleys, appearing sour and annoyed, sighing when Draco grimaces at them, but they hover nearby while the Weasleys’ camp all conjure stools and chairs, as if afraid to take their seats too early and end up sitting too close to an unsavory character. Draco closes the door and places his hand flat against it, rests his forehead on it and takes a deep breath to steel himself for this conversation. Quietly, slowly, careful to hide what he’s doing, he taps the doorknob with his wand and whispers, “ _Colloportus_ ,” listens to it lock as he pockets his wand again. 

When he finally turns around, everyone is seated in a little half-circle surrounding two chairs, except for him and his father, who appears to have been struck very suddenly with the reason he’s here, if his wide-eyed, unsteady expression is anything to go by. Draco grimaces at him again, and Narcissa hisses for their attention, mutters, “Lucius! Over here, now. Please.” Draco reaches out to his father, touches his elbow as they walk toward the two remaining empty chairs, overcome with a need to prove to his father that he’s still with him, still on his side, still willing to stand by him, as ever. Draco only sits down after Lucius does, worrying over the way he’s still looking like someone slapped him across the face.

“Right,” George says once Draco glances at him, cringing. “So, er, obviously you lot know now that we’re...together. We’re just here to answer questions--”

“Of which we’re sure you have many,” Draco says dryly, biting his lip at George’s panicked glance. Right. They both agreed to be sincere for this.

“Exactly how long has this relationship been going on?” Molly demands shrilly.

“Yesterday was our one-year anniversary,” George says. Draco’s mother blanches.

“ _A year?!_ ” she exclaims, in a wild voice which makes Draco realize that she's already cast aside all Malfoy manners, traded its serene superiority for the more dramatic flair of the Blacks. Draco gets his proclivity for histrionics from her side of the family, but she's always been far better schooled than her sisters and parents and cousins and aunts and uncles, even as a child, if Andromeda is to be believed. Seeing her adopt it now, in this of all situations, makes Draco’s shoulder muscles feel tight and knotted. “An entire year?! So every time George has been over to our home for dinner, except that lunch last July, you’ve been--”

“You’ve been to their _house_?!” Arthur says angrily, scandalized. 

“Yes, of course, he has!” Narcissa says, suddenly defensive of George. “Countless times!”

“Mother,” Draco says, trying to balance politeness with a warning.

“Is the Malfoy Manor very nice?” Bill asks curiously, eliciting a bark of laughter from George and enraged stares from the rest of the Weasley party. 

“Bill, how can you--” Arthur starts, but Bill rolls his eyes and cuts him off.

“Obviously Draco was bringing George to his family’s house for dinner, because George was bringing Draco over to our family’s house for dinner. That would’ve made sense even if they weren’t dating,” Bill says in exasperation.

“You went over to _their_ house?” Narcissa says. Draco sighs.

“Of course, I did, Mother,” he says, unable to hide his weariness.

Then Bill, with an honest laugh, says, “Besides, Dad, I’m sorry, but I don’t see why _all of us_ are supposed to pretend like this is a great shock. I really don’t understand how only a few of us put it together.”

“You _knew_?” Molly shrieks. “You knew and you didn’t say anything?”

“It’s not just me, Mum,” Bill says, clearly very tired. “Hermione knew as well.”

“Bill!” Granger hisses, wide-eyed and caught, as Potter, Weasley, and Ginny round on her with accusations and indignation, demanding to know why she didn’t tell them. Granger groans and begins wringing her hands, and for a moment, it’s exactly like any of the dozens and dozens of scenes of hers that Draco witnessed in the Great Hall or between classes. He’d be laughing at her in any other situation.

“It took awhile for me to realize what was going on,” she explains, sounding highly distressed. “Longer than it should have, to be honest, but we agreed that we would deliberately _not pay attention_ to Malfoy and I was trying to keep my promise!” Draco snorts at the mere thought of the goddamn precious Golden Trio ever minding their own business, even once. Granger snaps her head around to glare at him. “ _Besides_ ,” she continues pointedly, “it seemed so outrageous, I kept thinking that I might have got it wrong when, you know, they weren’t around, and then when they were, well, I wasn’t about to just throw out an accusation in the middle of dinner!”

“But surely--” Weasley begins.

“And I don’t think it’s fair for you to be so surprised!” Granger exclaims defensively. “I mean, I knew about Professor Lupin being a werewolf for practically the whole school year and didn’t say anything about that either.”

“Are you really sitting here and comparing my relationship with Draco to the knowledge that a teacher is a bloody _werewolf_?” George snaps. Granger has the decency to appear sufficiently ashamed at that. 

“It doesn’t _matter_ who knew what and when,” Arthur interjects with vicious annoyance. “What I want to know is _how_ , George. How did this happen? _Why_ him?” 

George begins to stammer and Draco glances at his father, who’s still silent, still looking haunted. It stings to look at him, to reckon with what’s making him look this stunned, so Draco turns his gaze away and looks instead to his right, where George is still struggling to articulate an answer to his own father’s questioning. 

Where George needs him.

“I got to know him,” George is saying, looking down at his hands on his knees, “the real him - the _new_ him. People _change_ , Dad...we both have, he and I, and he’s been--” George clears his throat. “He’s been… _important_...to me, and I--” George stops to take a breath, ends up taking several, labored and alarming, and Draco reaches out and closes his hand gently around George’s wrist. At Draco’s touch, George glances at him.

“It’s alright, George,” Draco whispers. George’s breathing calms. He closes his eyes, clearly readying himself to continue trying to explain what he feels for Draco, but a haggard, almost frightened voice comes from elsewhere.

“Your magic’s back.”

Draco huffs out a sudden exhalation, turns his head sharply to meet his father’s shocked eyes. Next to Lucius, Draco’s mother looks stricken, herself suddenly surprised.

“Your magic’s back? Draco--but I didn’t even notice,” she says in a frantic, amazed sort of whisper. Draco shakes his head.

“It’s not all back,” he says, desperate to clarify, make sure they understand he wasn’t hiding this from them without good reason. “It’s just the most elementary spells still, and only a few. I mean, I can lock and unlock doors, but it’s slow-going, and my levitation charm is so weak that I might as well not even be capable of it. I didn’t want to say anything in case more never came back, or if I lost it again. I didn’t want to put you through that.”

“Malfoy, you lost your magic?” Granger says. Draco reluctantly glances at her, sees her horrified expression only briefly, long enough to bristle with discomfort at receiving anything like pity from her.

“What does that even mean?” Weasley says.

“Wizards and witches can’t lose their magic, can they?” Potter asks.

“It’s exceedingly rare,” Granger answers quietly, still looking at Draco with sympathy. “It typically occurs only after an extreme trauma, and even then it’s still...I mean, there are only seven cases in British Wizarding history.”

“Eight, according to Ollivander,” Draco says, unable to even feel any satisfaction at the look on her face upon being corrected by him.

“Well, none of us lost our magic,” Weasley argues, gesturing to himself and Potter and Granger, “and we went through worse--”

“Ron, shut up,” Bill mutters, looking warily at George. Draco looks at George as well, sees the fierce expression on his face and feels, as he always does with George, safe and protected.

“You don’t know anything about what he went through,” George practically growls.

“And he...he did this?” Draco’s father asks, louder this time, capturing Draco’s attention again. “He got you to this point? Being with him--it’s helped your magic return?” he asks, all the while gesturing at George but never taking his eyes off his son. 

Looking into his father’s eyes right now, Draco feels the earth shifting under his feet. He knows, the way he knows that the sky is blue and that Potter is afflicted with hero syndrome, that this is his one chance to make his father understand. So he takes a breath, puts the Weasleys out of his mind, pretends it’s only him and his parents and George here in the shop, steadies himself.

“Yes, he did,” Draco says, neither his eyes nor his voice ever wavering. “Father, my hands don’t shake.” 

He catches the rise of his father’s chest indicating a silent gasp, sees his father’s eyes flick down to Draco’s steady hands, one still resting on George’s wrist. Narcissa’s eyes follow as well, and she looks up at Draco’s face then, at George’s, and her jaw sets, a simple, tiny action that puts impossible hope into Draco’s heart. It means that her mind, at least, is made up, even before she looks at her husband. Lucius swallows and turns his head to return her steely gaze, some unreadable secret message passing through their eye contact. He looks back at Draco and George.

“You’re happy,” he says. It’s not a question, but Draco still nods, emphatically.

“Yes, I am. George makes me happy. He makes me feel safe.” Draco watches with some trepidation as his father swallows again, takes a few deep breaths, well aware that all energy in the room is narrowed on the two of them.

“Well,” Lucius says with a single approving nod, setting his shoulders back, holding his head up proudly, “what more can a father ask for his son?”

“ _What?!_ ” Arthur shouts. Draco can hear Weasley grumbling in confusion, too, and Bill trying to stifle a laugh.

“Besides, we already really do quite like George,” Draco’s mother says, pointedly ignoring any outbursts from the Weasleys. She smooths down the skirt of her dress and casts a sideways glance at Arthur, her eyebrow arched in irritation and satisfaction. 

“Draco’s dad makes a point, Arthur,” Molly says somewhat begrudgingly, a comforting hand on her husband’s arm. Draco looks at her, gives her a small smile that he knows will win her over, motivate her to turn her influence on George’s father. Next to Molly, Arthur looks damn near apoplectic at Lucius’ easy acceptance, and Draco privately feels grateful for his father’s penchant for manipulation, his commitment to constantly appearing superior to Arthur Weasley, because he knows in this moment that Arthur will now do anything to avoid seeming like a worse father than Lucius Malfoy. Draco swallows a vicious grin, keeps an uncertain facade on his face as Molly sighs and gives Draco and George her own approving nod.

“Be reasonable, dear,” she says quietly to Arthur. “You heard George as well. How can we ask for more for him?”

“Well--yes--indeed,” Arthur splutters, red-faced. “Obviously, we only want you to be happy, George.” It clearly pains him to say this. Draco doesn’t have to be looking at George to know that he’s cringing through a prolonged wince.

“Well, that settles it,” Draco’s mother says, standing up abruptly. She gives George’s family a most haughty look, her nostrils flaring. “We’ll have you Weasleys over for dinner within the week, then.”

“What?” Lucius says suddenly, a new surprise wiping the collected look from his whole body. 

“Yes, and we’ll have you three over to the Burrow for dinner soon, too!” Molly exclaims, also standing.

“What?” Arthur says, color draining from his face. 

“That’s hardly a necessary measure, Narcissa,” says Draco’s father, his tone dangerously close to scolding.

“Molly, now really, we don’t need to go that far,” George’s father mutters angrily.

“Lucius, It’s been decided,” Draco’s mother says, a note of finality in her voice, turning her raised eyebrow on her husband, daring him to push back again. 

“There’s no reason not to, Arthur,” says George’s mother, crossing her arms and rounding on her husband, her own challenge hanging in the air. 

Neither man voices disagreement again. 

Draco and George exchange tentative smiles.

\---

Draco dreams a memory.

He thinks it’s a nightmare, at first. He’s at home for Easter holidays, standing in the deep purple drawing room, trying to keep his distance from Greyback. Something is being demanded of him that terrifies him, makes his heart leap to his throat. 

“Well, Draco? Is it? Is it Harry Potter?” his father asks. 

Draco is reluctant, frightened to look at the figure being presented to him. It is Potter. He knows it is. He’s been here so often that he doesn’t even have to look to know, but the thought of saying it makes him feel like he’s moments away from vomiting. 

“I can’t--I can’t be sure,” he says, on cue. Then he winces in anticipation of his father’s excited voice, knowing what’s coming.

“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!” 

His father’s hand on the back of his neck, squeezing, pinching, just a bit too hard. Firewhiskey strong on his father’s breath. A low hiss.

“Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv--”

An interruption by Greyback that causes his father to release him, to approach Potter himself. Draco falls back, wanting to hide near the fireplace again, wanting to wake from this. 

“What did you do to him? What’s wrong with his face?”

Draco blinks. That second question was wrong. That’s not what happened. He turns, walks over slowly, like he’s about to be bitten, toward his father and Potter, only to find that it isn’t Potter being held captive at all.

“It’s not Potter,” he says distantly, staring into the dark blue eyes in front of him. “It’s George Weasley.”

Suddenly it’s morning, a few days later, and he’s about to leave for the train to return to Hogwarts. He stands in his parents’ bedroom, where he’s been sleeping every night since Death Eaters began using this place as headquarters. He’s trembling. This is a memory, too.

“I don’t have a wand,” he whispers. 

His father’s hand on his shoulder, gripping in silent desperation. The phantoms in his father’s grey eyes. A sharp exhale.

“Take mine,” his mother says quietly. 

She holds it out in her hand. Draco looks down at it. He shakes his head, looking back up at them. 

“I can’t do that. I can’t leave you two alone, _here_ , without a wand between you,” he says. 

He’s crying. He doesn’t know when he started crying.

“Take it,” his mother says. She wipes a tear from his face with her thumb.

“We’ll survive,” his father says. It feels like a lie. 

Draco looks at him. He lets go of Draco’s shoulder.

“You have to,” Draco says, his voice breaking. “You have to, you have to.”

“Draco, please, it’s almost time,” his mother says. “He’ll be here any moment.” 

Draco’s tears stop. That second statement was wrong. That’s not what she said. He stares at her.

“Who?” he asks distantly. “Who will be here?”

“George, of course,” his father says. 

“Look, that’ll be him now,” his mother says. 

There’s a soft knock at the window. His mother looks at him expectantly until he waves the wand - her wand - and pulls back the curtain, raises the window. George Weasley is there on a broomstick, looking relieved and happy to see Draco and his parents. 

“You’ll take care of him,” his father says, at the window.

“I promise,” says George. “I’ll keep him safe.”

Draco wakes up in George’s arms. He looks at his watch. It’s 7:00.

\---

A week later, Draco removes the custard pie from the oven and sets it out to cool on the countertop in the main kitchen. He turns to face his parents, who have been wearing long-suffering expressions all day and asking questions like, “Are you quite sure that it can't _just_ be George?” and, “You’re not planning on giving them a tour, are you?” He meets their uncertain gazes and rests his hands on the counter behind him, as if preparing to hoist himself up onto it, like he’s done countless times before. He sighs.

“Mother, please just promise me that you will at least _try_ to not be too terribly passive-aggressive,” he says wearily. “Molly Weasley was the first ally I had in their home. She really is very welcoming and kind, and it would mean a lot to me if we could return only a quarter of that favor tonight.”

“Only a quarter?” his mother says, her eyebrows raised.

“Well, it _is_ their whole family. I don't want to ask too much of you,” he says dryly. She rolls her eyes some.

“ _Fiiine_ , I will do my best,” she drawls, in her best imitation of Lucius’ Wiltshire accent. Across the kitchen island from her, Lucius raises his own eyebrows at her as he pours himself a glass of wine. Narcissa levels a look at him, places her hands on the counter between them and leans forward. “Lucius, you will only be drinking two glasses tonight, so fill your glass wisely.”

Lucius pauses, adopts a thoughtful expression for a moment before closing his eyes and raising the glass to his nose. He breathes in the scent of the wine for several seconds, a moment of respite before an oncoming storm. He lowers the glass and opens his eyes again, gives Narcissa and Draco both a pleasant, acquiescent look. “Very well, then. I shall place this one at my setting on the table to await me.”

“I’ll know if you’ve drunk it and refilled out of my sight, you know,” Narcissa says coolly. Lucius smiles, genuine and warm, as if caught off guard by his wife. Draco watches as his father sets the wine glass aside and leans forward to take Narcissa’s hand in his, to look at her fully.

“Of course, I know you’ll know. When have I ever successfully deceived you, my dear?” he says sweetly. Narcissa rolls her eyes again, but it’s good-natured this time, nearly flirtatious. Draco clears his throat.

“Since I’m going to go wait at the gate for our guests, I’ll just take it to the table on my way out,” he says as he walks forward and picks up the glass from the island, gives them both a smile as he begins leaving the kitchen. He spins around in the doorway and adds, “Perhaps...cool it...before they get here, alright? It’s not just George and me tonight, remember.”

“Oh, how could we _possibly_ forget?” Narcissa says dryly as Lucius steps around the island to pull her close. Draco turns away laughing and takes a small sip of the wine himself before setting it on the dining room table.

Outside, the hedges stand tall and dark against the orange-pink sky as he nears the gate, and in the corner where the gate meets the hedge, a family of white peacocks begins to peep excitedly at him. He smiles and crouches down next to them, takes a quick headcount - four little ones crowding him, a larger one hanging back and cooing...so it’s the brand new family, then. Sophia Dorothea is a first-time mother, rather young, and four eggs was rare for her age, but it worked out perfectly for the Malfoys and George, as they each got to name one chick when they hatched. Draco and George have spent countless evenings for the past few months sitting in the grass to feed them, sheltering them under the gazebo, protecting them from the bigger, older peacocks and peahens wandering the grounds. 

“Good evening, Wilhelmina,” Draco says to the littlest one rubbing her face against his shoe. “Augustus, Luise, Frederick.” He smiles down at all of them, scratches their feathers until they look like they’ve got bedhead. He can hear several loud cracks resounding in the distance and familiar voices approaching the gate, and he focuses on the birds to ignore the twinge of anxiety in his chest. He holds out a hand to the peachicks’ mother, clicks his tongue quietly until she comes forward and rests her head on his palm. “Oh, dear Sophia, you seem to be doing a fine job with these tiny terrors, hmm?”

“You been chattin’ up birds behind my back, babe?” comes George’s voice from the gate. Draco lets himself smile down at Sophia Dorothea and her babies before tucking it away in hiding.

“Oh, you’re very clever,” he says dryly, patting the birds on their heads and standing up to see George leaning casually against the gate, smirking at him, ahead of the Weasleys and Potter and Granger. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head at the satisfied expression on George’s face as George wraps his hands around two of the bars, squeezes until the gate recognizes him as a friend and slowly swings open. George walks in like he belongs here, touches Draco’s elbow and kisses his cheek before bending down to greet the birds himself. Draco can hear him singling out Frederick as the rest of his family walks through the gate: Molly hugs him briefly, Bill and Fleur grin at him and shake his hand and look fairly impressed at the enormity of the Manor grounds and house, Percy flashes a grimace toward him, Granger glances around as though a hedge is about to attack her, and Potter and Weasley are clearly displeased about being back here, though not as displeased as Arthur. _The feeling is mutual_ , Draco thinks, scowling at Potter and Weasley as he turns around to lead the way to the front doors, George’s hand on his back as he walks beside him.

Dinner is terribly tense, and more than once, Arthur implies that Draco is poisoning them all, but it’s not entirely unsuccessful. Draco’s father somehow resists smashing his wine glass in his hand and Draco’s mother manages to remain cordial with Molly the entire time. Both of Draco’s parents get along fairly well with Bill and Fleur and are, after an initial and well-hidden flash of mild disgust at a baby being in their home, happy to meet chubby little Victoire. Draco’s father doesn’t even bring up that long-ago lunch with Percy. All in all, it’s not a wholly awful evening.

“Could’ve been worse,” George says at Spinner’s End, alone with Draco, between breathless kisses. Draco hums, pulls George back down to the bed, and slips his hand under his shirt.

A few days later, Draco walks down the hill with his parents towards the Burrow.

“Does it smell?” his father asks.

“No, Father, it doesn’t _smell_ ,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. Then, “Well, it smells like whatever Molly’s cooking, usually. And George’s old room - his and Fred’s - it smells like smoke, but...And, alright, sometimes, during Quidditch season when the girl would come back for dinner from practices, it would sort of smell like mud.”

“Sweet Merlin,” his mother mutters.

“But we’ll be eating outside, so that’s all irrelevant, really,” Draco adds. 

“Draco, am I hallucinating or does their house look like it was a pig--”

“Malfoys!” George calls happily, walking out to meet them just in front of the house. “Welcome to the Burrow!” He laughs openly at Lucius’ grimace and Narcissa’s pursed lips. Draco loves him.

This dinner is tense as well, perhaps even more so than the one at the Malfoy Manor, but Draco is fascinated by how similar he and his father are, watching his father spend the majority of the meal talking to Bill and Fleur and George, muttering little French nursery rhymes to Victoire in her bassinet, virtually ignoring that anyone else is even at the table at all. The tension is offset, too, by the strange, suspended moment when Draco’s mother looks at the clock in the living room and gasps, asks where they got it, tells Molly that she’d love to own something like that, tells Molly that it’s brilliant magic, that she loves it. 

“Could’ve been worse,” Draco says at Spinner’s End, alone with George, between biting kisses. George sighs, pushes Draco against the wall, and slips his hand into the front of his jeans.

\---

Word gets around about Draco and George, and soon enough, they get visits from Blaise and Pansy, Jordan and Johnson at the shop. 

“We need to talk,” they say icily. 

“Dinner tomorrow?” Draco and George say, grimacing. 

“My house,” says Draco. 

“My flat,” says George. 

Draco is expecting the very worst at Spinner’s End. His parents have found it within themselves to be marginally forgiving of his choice of a significant other, but he’s not completely certain that Pansy and Blaise will be so open. He’s pleasantly surprised, then, when their primary complaint turns out to be that Draco didn’t tell them. 

“A whole damn _year_ you kept this from us, Draco!” Pansy shrieks. “You could have told us, you know! We’re only you’re very best friends!”

“Can you really blame me, Pans?” Draco asks. “It’s George _Weasley_. You two were having a hard enough time accepting that George and I were something like friends. How could I ever predict how you’d react to news of us in a relationship? I don’t think I even have a handle on how you’re reacting _now_.”

“Oh, we think you’re quite mad,” Blaise says. “Our assumption thus far has been that this occurred due to your desperation and loneliness. Is that correct?”

“What?” Draco says, confused. “Despe--you….” He looks back and forth between the two of them, taking in the concern on their faces, the rigid lines of their backs betraying the intensity of their powers of observation. “You really believe that I’m only with George out of desperation?”

“What else could it be, Draco?” Pansy says gently. Draco shakes his head, scoffs.

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help us to,” says Blaise. Draco looks at Pansy and Blaise again, and to their credit, they clearly do want to understand, are truly trying, taking a risk. Draco sighs. 

“It’s not desperation,” he says, “and it wasn’t loneliness, not really.” He bites his lip, looks away. He knows how to explain it - he’s done it for Meriweather a few times, and for himself quite a bit more than a few, and for his parents, the day after the big meeting in the shop with him and George and the Weasleys - but thinking of saying it out loud to Blaise and Pansy makes him feel...pathetically young, even a bit weak, somehow. He sighs again and closes his eyes. 

“I spent years feeling cold,” he says. “Frozen. And you both know me. You know I was more than happy to let everyone see that and think it was who I am, _all_ I am.” He opens his eyes, lets a laugh escape him, a disbelieving smile taking over his face. “George saw through that, though, even before I was comfortable with letting him. And whatever it was that he saw in me, beyond the ice, he thought that it was worth knowing, worth his time, worth his attention.” He looks up at them, begs them both with his eyes to not mock him for this explanation. “It feels like my heart has thawed.”

“He’s why you’ve been so much happier,” Blaise says. 

“And much less anxious,” says Pansy. 

“I mean, he doesn’t deserve _all_ the credit,” Draco says honestly. “I’ve done the work, too. I was trying, before him. I was working it out. But I think I would have always been satisfied with the shadows, if not for him. I’m not sure I ever would have been truly happy, and he’s got me considering the sunlight.” The house is silent then, save for the bubbling of a potion that’s been brewing for twenty-nine days. 

Finally, Pansy raises her eyebrow and crosses her arms. “Well, you still could’ve told us.”

“It’s not as though we want you to be miserable for the rest of your life, you know,” Blaise says. “I can’t speak for Pansy--”

“That’s new,” Pansy says dryly.

“--but I, for one, am willing to meet him properly,” Blaise finishes. 

“Of course, we will,” agrees Pansy, “and as much as it pains me to say, we will--” she groans, “--give him a real chance.” Draco smiles at them, genuinely grateful.

“Well, he expects you to be assholes, so don’t sprain anything trying to be nice on my account,” he says wryly. Blaise and Pansy smirk at him.

“Who do you think we are?” asks Blaise, just as Pansy says, “As if we ever would.”

Draco grins. “And, alright, I know we first made this honesty pact when we were...what, seven?”

“Six,” Blaise says.

“Right. Well, I reckon I broke the pact we made at age six to never keep secrets from one another right around the summer after fifth year, but you’re correct,” Draco says. “I should have trusted you to not be...awful...about my relationship with George. So, no more secrets? None of us?” He’s expecting an easy agreement, after all this, but instead he finds himself staring at Pansy and Blaise wearing matching expressions of one whose bluff has been called. He looks from Blaise to Pansy and back to Blaise, who has, in the space of a glance, schooled his features once again into his usual unreadable stoic sculpture. There’s still a degree of wariness in the barely twitching nerve above his brow, though, that Draco can see. Draco narrows his eyes.

“No more secrets,” he says, full of suspicion. “Alright. Both of you. Spill the potions.”

“Both of us?” Pansy and Blaise look at each other suddenly.

“Who are you hiding then?” Blaise asks.

“Who are _you_ hiding?” Pansy snaps.

They glower at one another. Draco raises his eyebrow.

“If you don’t talk, I have no choice but to come to my own conclusions, you know,” he says, rather enjoying this. Whatever is making them this uncomfortable are going to be _good_ secrets. He leans forward with his elbows on the table, propping his head up in his hands. “Have the two of you gotten together, then? You know, I always wondered--”

“ _No!_ ” they say in unison. Draco grins mischievously. 

“Fine. Then are you--”

“Luna and Neville!” Pansy screeches, her hands flying to grip her own hair, covering her face. There’s a long moment of silence in which Draco is certain that he heard her wrong, exchanges a look with Blaise that tells him that Blaise is thinking the same thing, and looks back at Pansy.

“I’m--”

“It’s Luna and Neville!” Pansy says again, shrieking still. “I’m seeing Luna and Neville.”

“Neville--Neville _Longbottom_?” Blaise says, astounded, which at least makes Draco feel a bit steadier, a bit less mad.

“Yes, of _course_ , Neville Longbottom, Blaise, _god_!” Pansy cries. She pulls her hair away from her eyes and finally looks at Blaise and Draco, who is at a complete loss.

“I--but--since when?” he finally asks. Pansy groans and covers her face with her hair again, even as she leans back in her chair to lift her face toward the ceiling.

“A little over two months,” she says.

“ _Two months?!_ ” says Draco. “Two months? Pansy, the man comes round to my house every two _weeks_! You’re telling me the past four times that he’s been here, he’s been shacked up with Luna _and you_?” Pansy groans again, apologetic and embarrassed.

“ _How_ did this happen?” Blaise says, dark eyes practically bulging from his head. “How _on earth_?” Pansy heaves a great sigh and finally rights herself in her chair. She removes her fingers from her hair, not bothering to smooth it down, and lets out a final sound of frustration.

“Our expedition to Canada,” she says. “It was Neville’s third with Luna and me, then, and by that time it was obvious to all those involved that we were both mad for her--”

“I knew it!” Draco says, and sticks up his middle finger when Blaise shushes him.

“--and it turned out that she was actually fairly mad for both of us--”

“Is she not also simply fairly mad in general?” Blaise says, and sticks up his middle finger when Draco shushes him.

“--and things just...happened!” Pansy finishes. She turns earnest eyes on each of them, a spark of defiance behind her pupils. “He’s _interesting_! And he’s funny and smart and considerate, and he apologized for his part in the whole, you know, me being ostracized from the wide British Wizarding world thing, and he thinks I’m brave and clever, and don’t act like either of you objectively think that he’s still that ugly little flobberworm that he was for so many years in school. You’ve seen how good-looking he is now. You _know_ the war did him well.”

“I know nothing of the sort!” Blaise says, just as Draco nods resignedly and mutters, “Yeah.”

“And anyway,” Pansy says, looking much happier now than she did mere minutes ago, “he is _exceptionally_ good in bed, and so is Luna, and, frankly, so am I, so the three of us are having fantastic sex, far likely better than either of you, _so there_.”

“Merlin’s sake,” Blaise says.

“I would argue about the better sex, but I truly do not want any additional details,” Draco says, sticking his tongue out and making a big show of gagging just a little. 

“Fine by me,” Pansy says, crossing her arms again.

“Listen, I’m happy for you, Pansy,” he says. “I really am. What about you, Blaise?” Blaise jumps.

“What?”

“...Aren’t you happy for Pansy?” Draco asks slowly, his eyes narrowing, intense focus on Blaise, who has the strange and uncharacteristic look of a hunted man whose time has just run out.

“Oh,” Blaise says. “Yes. I am. Very happy for you, Pansy.” He clears his throat, straightens his shoulders. “It’s an unconventional arrangement, of course, but then, you were never especially--”

“And who is it _you’re_ hiding, Blaise?” Draco asks, causing Blaise to jump again. He looks at Draco and Pansy both, eyes agonizing, and Draco is beginning to truly worry until Blaise finally starts speaking.

“I have, ah,” he pauses, clears his throat again, looks down. “I have been… _conversing_ with...Calliope.”

“ _What?!_ ” Draco and Pansy cry.

“A _Muggle_?” Pansy says.

“My _neighbor_?” Draco says, then, immediately, with a jerky little gesture, “Also a Muggle, yes, which is, perhaps, a larger and more relevant point. You’re right, Pansy.” She gives him a dry, unimpressed look and rolls her eyes.

“Yes, it is the Muggle point that’s caused me to move so slowly,” Blaise says quietly. “In all honesty, if she were a witch, then I’d have long since asked her out on several proper dates by now.”

“Wait, so what do you mean you’re ‘conversing’ with her?” Pansy asks, waving her wand surreptitiously to generate little mocking quotation marks made of smoke in the air above the table that flash yellow when she says “conversing.” It’s really clever magic, and more than likely something she learned just to make fun of her friends. Blaise scowls at her, and jabs at the air with his own wand, expelling the smoke, before answering.

“We’ve been exchanging letters,” he admits. “My owl leaves my letters to her at her door, and then she leaves her replies there, too, for my owl to pick up and bring to me. She doesn’t know about the owl, though, of course. He’s very careful to never be seen. Calliope thinks that it’s very sweet and charming that I’m so old-fashioned and uninterested in electronic mail or telephones.”

“I don’t understand,” Draco says. “You barely talk to her whenever the four of us spend time together. I didn’t even think you liked her at all!”

“Oh, come on, Draco, look who you’re talking to,” Blaise says with a miserable sigh, no bite to his words whatsoever. “You know me. I’m closed off and particular, and more to the point, I’m a Pureblood, for fuck’s sake, and she’s a _Muggle_. It took me the better part of the year since you introduced us last June to come to terms with _that_. I didn’t want to say anything to the two of you until I was sure that she and I could be...something.” He bites his lip. “As it is, the timing is right anyway, I think. I actually had plans to go home and write a letter officially declaring my intentions with her, although I’m sure she’s already well aware.”

“Does she know that you’re a wizard?” Draco asks quietly.

“No,” Blaise says. “I wondered if I should tell her, be honest from the start. But I can’t do that without exposing you, I think, and I don’t want you to have her know until you’re ready.” Draco nods, grateful. “The hope, then, of course, is that when she does find out, she’ll be too impressed with the wonders of magic to be angry with me.”

“I’m sure she’ll be understanding,” Draco says. “She’s a lovely young woman, a great friend. Good choice, you know.” Blaise smiles, pleased. Suddenly, Pansy lets out a high-pitched burst of laughter, covering her mouth when Blaise and Draco look at her.

“It’s just….” she says, looking somewhat delirious in happiness, “it’s just that it’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? None of us are quite what our ancestors would want.”

“No sparkling idealizations at this table,” Blaise agrees, smirking.

“We’re trendsetters, we are,” Draco says. 

\---

Longbottom is at the house a few days later, poking at the plants. Draco stands outside in the garden with him, leaning against the glass door, watching him work. Longbottom never really makes conversation unless Draco initiates it, and usually Draco’s more than happy with that arrangement, but today he wishes that Longbottom would say something to him, anything, speak any words besides the mumblings about the Tentacula or the goosegrass, which are always meant only for himself. Finally, as Neville pulls on his special gloves to tend to the Devil’s Snare, Draco can’t resist any longer.

“Pansy told me about you and Luna and her,” he says plainly. Neville freezes for a moment, cringes slightly before looking up at Draco.

“She mentioned she did,” he says. “I would’ve said something, but...I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it or just pretend it’s not happening.”

“Hmm,” says Draco. “She did say that you were considerate.” Longbottom blinks at him, then laughs.

“Malfoy, if this is your attempt at warning me about not hurting your best friend, _or else_ , then I feel like you should know going in: I haven’t been afraid of you since the middle of fifth year.”

“I know,” Draco says dryly. “I have a distinct and disturbing memory of you lunging for me and flailing your fists after I made a joke about Potter’s brain being addled by magic and soon becoming a St. Mungo’s patient. It was, admittedly, not one of my more interesting jokes, and a punch would’ve been well-deserved for that alone, even without any of the other existing factors.” Longbottom gives him an analyzing look, furrowed brow and all, and finally huffs out another laugh before crouching down to examine the Devil’s Snare. 

“Anyway, the goal is not to threaten you,” Draco says. “Pansy can more than take care of herself. I’d have at least four scars to prove it, if not for dittany. I simply wanted to make sure that you understand that she’s taking a rather large risk by being with you and Luna.” Longbottom bites his lip, but continues working with the plant, not shifting his gaze at all, so Draco continues. “Girls like Pansy were never raised to follow their hearts. It would’ve been just sheer luck for her if she and I ended up together, but fate and genetics obviously had other plans all along. Her choice to be with you, after everything she’s endured for the past two years and then some, is a gift, and Pansy isn’t exactly generous.”

“I know, Malfoy,” Longbottom says, finally turning his head to look at Draco.

“Good,” Draco says, raising an eyebrow. Then, his words turning to ice the moment they leave his throat, “In that case, you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I say this: should I ever learn of you taking advantage of that gift, humiliating her, tarnishing her reputation, toying with her emotions, or polluting her mind and making her hate herself again - pay attention, Longbottom - I will _make you_ afraid of me again.” He’s immensely satisfied to see Longbottom’s mouth open, eyes widening almost imperceptibly. Draco nods once, a last bookend to the conversation, and turns to go back into the house.

“I didn’t expect Pansy, you know,” Longbottom says. Draco stops, and turns instead to look at Longbottom as he stands again. “I mean, Luna I saw coming for at least a year. Everyone else did, too, probably. But I didn’t expect Pansy. She took me clean by surprise.” He rubs the back of his neck with his gloves still on, and Draco has no doubt that he’s got dirt there now, mingling with sweat. He wonders idly if Luna and Pansy like that, if they find it charming or sexy or cute.

“Pansy takes many people by surprise,” Draco says. Longbottom grins.

“Yeah, she said that once,” he says, shaking his head. “Said it was her innate Slytherin cunning.” 

Draco feels the corner of his mouth twitch. It’s a very typical Pansy thing to say, but it’s not very true. _More like everyone just counts her out_ , he thinks, annoyed. 

“But I think it’s probably more like everyone just counts her out all the time,” Longbottom says. Draco stands up straight. “And I don’t know why anyone would. She’s a force of nature, isn’t she? Just as fierce and defiant and resilient as she is gentle and perceptive.” Longbottom’s got a look on his face that makes Draco’s heart skip a beat. It’s the same way he looked at Luna that evening at her house, when Draco knew that Longbottom was in love with her. It’s how Draco always hoped someone would look at Pansy, after he knew it couldn’t ever be him. He swallows past a lump in his throat.

“I won’t hurt her, Malfoy,” Longbottom says. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I did.” After a long moment, Draco nods, and then Longbottom laughs yet again. “It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? Me and Pansy, you and George.”

“Hmm,” Draco says again, ducking his head to hide his smile. “So it is.”

\---

A particularly strange development in the aftermath of the big reveal is this: Granger seems to have taken an interest in Draco. It’s an interest that involves looking relieved and even happy to see him when he arrives with George for dinners at the Burrow, following him into the kitchen to talk to him, changing the routine seating arrangement at dinner to sit closer to him. It’s unnerving for everyone around them, but certainly no one more than Draco, who has been forced now to reckon with the absolutely mad and unwelcome realization that he and Granger really are very much alike.

“Oh my god,” he says delightedly to her across the kitchen table as they slice turnips while Molly sings loudly along to a Celestina Warbeck song on the radio. “I don’t believe this! You, as vexingly self-righteous as you behave, are _just_ as judgmental and petty as I am.”

“I am not!” Granger says, slicing rather viciously. Draco gives her a dubious look.

“I always knew you three were just as faulty as the rest of us supporting characters, of course, but I had no idea in what exact ways your imperfections must manifest - besides the obvious, I mean, because anyone can see that Potter clearly has a complex, your boyfriend’s extremely dim, and you are, well, everything that you are,” he says with an pitying look which causes Granger to roll her eyes very dramatically, which makes him smile even wider. “But I had no way of knowing that you are also petty and judgmental. This is positively liberating, you know. I no longer have to beat myself up over these qualities that I possess.”

“Oh, please,” Granger hisses. “First of all, nothing you do could possibly convince me that you have _ever_ beat yourself up over your myriad of character flaws. Second, Ron is not _extremely dim_. And third, I do, indeed, have an...unfortunate tendency to be highly critical of others, and to hold grudges for perhaps longer than strictly necessary,” she says in an irritatingly high pitch. “ _However_ , I understand those traits to be _faults_ , unlike you, and I put effort into keeping that part of myself at bay, _unlike you_.”

“Oh, no, I do very much understand them to be faults - and I love correcting you, by the way, Granger - but you’re right, I put very little to no effort into pretending to be something that I’m not,” Draco says, feeling a slight, curious twinge at what he vaguely registers as a lie that wouldn’t have been untrue a month ago, and ignoring it. “You’ve got to embrace your flaws, Granger. I’m sure you’d be a much more tolerable person if you did.” 

So Granger is...around now. 

And she and Draco are becoming...something like friends. 

And Draco finally gets an answer to a question he asked in a clothing shop over four years ago.

George receives a huge bouquet at the shop. He searches through the dozens of flowers for a whole minute before he finds the note. 

_G -_  
_I told Granger years ago that I wanted to send flowers to whoever blacked her eye. As it turns out, it was you. It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?_  
_Yours,_  
_D._

Draco is in the back room working on a new experimental potion when George enters, hands him a sparkling violet rose, and pulls him into a kiss.


	11. Chapter 11

George brings Draco around Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan. It does not go well. 

Draco’s not supposed to be on his best behavior or anything - George insisted that he be himself, more or less - and Jordan and Johnson are supposed to be at their most open-minded about him. Facts are facts, though, and the unfortunate facts at play in this situation begin with Draco having nothing in common with George’s friends and end with George’s friends really, truly hating Draco. 

He doesn’t particularly blame them and it doesn’t surprise him at all. It’s not like he was expecting an instant bond to be forged over their mutual care for George, but - that’s just it, is the thing. When Draco brought George around Pansy and Blaise, the tension was ever present, of course it was, but Draco’s friends clearly _wanted_ to be there, and George wanted to be there too, all for Draco’s sake. The three of them are far from friends, and perhaps won’t be, truly, for years, but they managed friendly. They talked about Draco, shared mild and humorous horror stories about being close to him. They shook hands in an understood truce. 

Johnson and Jordan barely even look at Draco, much less extend a hand, even in this context of introduction. When they speak to him, it’s only because George prompts them, and as soon as George leaves the table to go buy another round of drinks, they turn the discussion to the war, to the trials, to the way Draco behaved at Hogwarts. More than once, Draco tries to apologize, to tell them he doesn’t blame them for hating him, to ask them to trust George’s choice to be with him. But as the evening is winding down, Draco excuses himself to the loo, and when he comes back, he can hear them talking about him, and he ducks back to hide behind the stairs and listen, needing to know for himself the unfiltered account of this.

“I told you,” George says, “he’s not like that anymore.”

“Seriously?” says Johnson. “Have you not been sat at this table with us all night?”

“You’re only seeing what you want to see,” George says. “Look, I know it’s not easy to just forget school and the war and all, so I know you didn’t actually come here with a very open mind--”

“An open mind?” Jordan says. “George--”

“He’s _different_ ,” George interjects. “Come on. It’s _me_. You know I wouldn’t even entertain this if he was still a freak about blood status and wealth.” There’s a second of silence then where Jordan and Johnson must make faces or glance at each other or something, because the next thing Draco hears is George again, saying, “Oh, what is that? That look there? Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

“George, it’s just that...” Johnson trails off.

“It’s just that we _don’t_ exactly know that with full confidence,” Jordan says. “Not anymore. You hid this from us for over a year, mate, and even before that...I mean, you rarely ever hang out with us.”

“I’ve told you I’m sorry about that,” George mutters. “I’ve told you it’s because you remind me--”

“Too much of Fred, yeah,” Johnson says, her tone sympathetic and genuine. “We get that, George. Honestly, we do.”

“Think of what Fred would say, though,” Jordan says. “How would he feel if he saw you and Mal--”

“ _Don’t_ ,” says George, his voice low and steely, dangerous and scary. Jordan stops talking immediately. Another silence, then, and Draco wonders if George is seething, if Johnson and Jordan are looking awkward and apologetic, how long the break in conversation will continue. He considers showing himself now, rejoining the table as if he heard nothing, but just as he takes a step, they begin speaking again.

“George, listen,” Johnson says. 

“He makes me _happy_ ,” George interrupts quietly, his voice breaking. Draco feels a surge of anger inside him at Johnson and Jordan for making George feel this way, for making him sound broken. “You don’t have to understand why. Most of the time, I don’t think I do either. But can’t you give him a chance? For me?”

“He’s gotten plenty of chances, I think, in the five years we were at school with him, and during the war,” Jordan says.

“He’s _changed_ ,” says George, imploring.

“George,” Johnson says, and Draco turns his head and peeks out enough to see her rest her hand on George’s. “No one can change _that_ much.” George pulls his hand away from hers like she stung him. Draco sighs and decides to end it there.

“There’s a queue for the loo like you wouldn’t believe,” he says as he approaches the table. Jordan and Johnson look up at him with narrowed eyes. George looks down into his empty glass. Draco clears his throat. “Did I miss anything important?”

“No,” George says, standing. Jordan and Johnson look at him, a bit surprised, as he pulls a handful of sickles from his money pouch and places them in a rather haphazard pile on the table. “Lovely seeing you two,” he says to his friends, picking up Draco’s bag and handing it to him. Draco takes it without question, adjusts the strap over his chest, and notices George’s outstretched hand. He holds it, hears George say, “Good night,” and readies himself to Apparate, but instead, George turns and walks them out of the Leaky Cauldron, out onto Diagon Alley.

They walk in silence for a bit, and at one point, they do Apparate, onto a side street in Muggle London, where they walk in silence a bit more. It seems like George just wants to hold Draco’s hand, and Draco has no complaints, so he goes along, glancing every few minutes at George’s face, his sad and exhausted eyes. He doesn’t know what to say that could make George feel any better, but he does eventually decide that he should be honest, so as they’re walking slowly over a bridge, he says, “The only thing I care about is whether _you_ believe I’ve changed that much.” 

George pauses, sighs, gives Draco a look of awkward discomfort. “I wondered if you heard,” he says. “You’d never comment on a queue to the toilet otherwise.” Draco smiles, but it doesn’t have any staying power. 

“Are you going to be alright?” he asks softly. “Do you want to talk about what they said?” George shakes his head.

“Merlin, no,” he says. “I just….” He looks down, grimacing, hesitant. “Honestly, I thought _your_ friends would be the ones pushing back like this.” Draco laughs, and George looks up at him, a small smile on his face.

“Yeah, I did, too,” Draco says. After a moment, he glances around before leaning forward to steal a quick kiss from George. “Come on. Let’s just go home.”

\---

It’s a rare Wednesday in late September when several lunch breaks coincide, which is how Draco ends up at the Plucky Pixie Diner a few blocks away from the Ministry of Magic, sharing a meal with George, Potter, Weasley, and Granger. 

“Ginny’s got a big match this weekend, so she doesn’t have long breaks during practices to Apparate here to meet us for lunch,” Potter says by way of explanation of his girlfriend’s absence as he and Weasley sit down at the corner booth.

“Didn’t ask,” Draco says, bored, not bothering to look up from the menu. He can practically hear Potter scowling.

“Hermione should be on her way. She said she had books to get from her office,” Weasley says.

“Still didn’t ask.” Another nearly audible scowl. _Twenty points to Slytherin_ , Draco thinks, smirking.

The four of them order, with Weasley ordering for Granger, because apparently they eat here often enough for there to be favorites and usuals, and Draco retrieves his journal from his bag while the Weasleys and Potter talk about the Holyhead Harpies’ upcoming season. He’s scanning the page of the map of beech tree forests in Denmark, thinking that he and George can probably finish that leg of this journey and move on to Norway all on Saturday if they get an early enough start - he knows he’s getting close to his tree, he _knows_ it - when a stack of thick books slams onto the table space across from him. He jumps, and then he sighs.

“What’s all this, Granger?” he asks dryly, looking up at her. Her thick hair is just visible over the top book until she wisely reorganizes them into two piles. 

“Light reading?” Weasley asks her with a grin. She gives him a small smile.

“You know me,” she says, then turns to Draco. “I’ve been thinking about your problem, Malfoy.”

“My problem with you?” he asks. “What a coincidence! I have as well, and I think it’s best if we simply go back to our prior arrangement of pretending that the other doesn’t exist.” It’s a mark of how well they already know each other that Granger completely ignores him. 

“I think there might be a way to--” She glances around and lowers her voice before continuing, “--get your magic back.” Draco gives her a curious look, which she evidently takes as encouragement. “According to my research, crafting one’s own wand could prove that one is truly deserving to possess magic. The only trouble is that it could take some time. Wandmaking isn’t an easy or simple art, you know. It’s not exactly something you can just jump into without more information. So I brought these books on wandlore and crafting for you to look through. From what I can tell, you need to determine what wood suits you first, and then move onto cores.”

“Alright, fall back, Granger. Is this what you were like with your Society for the Protection of Elfish Whimsy? Oh, yes, George told me about S.P.E.W.,” Draco says, answering the surprised look on Granger’s face. “You must be very proud of the Hogwarts house elves’ heroic actions in the final battle. Personally, once the haze of those memories mostly cleared, I found that I greatly enjoyed witnessing Macnair getting speared in the ankles. Something tells me that he’d still be having trouble walking even if they weren’t keeping him in shackles at Azkaban.” He shoves the salt and pepper shakers out of his way, toward Weasley, and reaches for Granger’s books, scanning their titles.

“Now, as for your new project - i.e., _me_ , evidently with or without my consent, just like those house elves,” Draco says, holding up his hand to quiet her when she lets out an offended squawk, which she slaps away _very_ hard, which Draco knows he deserves. “Not up to your usual standards, Granger. In fact, you’re way behind. I put that together over a year ago, I’ve been searching beech tree forests for wood for a new wand since July, and I’ve read every single one of these books that you’ve brought today. Thirty points from Gryffindor, I’m afraid.”

“You know it’s annoying when you do that House points thing, right?” George asks.

“You like it,” Draco mutters, casting a glance and a smirk at George, who rolls his eyes but doesn’t disagree.

“All of them? You’ve read _all_ of them?” Granger asks. 

“Makes sense,” Weasley says, poking at Granger’s elbow. “George said Malfoy was a nerd like you.” Draco and Granger both turn to glare at him, as Granger places all of the books inside her tiny purse. “What? George’s words!” 

“Anyway, Granger, yes, all of them,” Draco says.

“There were a few others on the subject that I couldn’t find in any bookstore or library,” Granger says, defensive and slightly flustered, like she’s disappointed. She pulls a scrap of parchment from her pocket and unfolds it. Draco snatches it from her hand before she can begin reading it. “Hey!”

“Already read it, already read it, already read it,” he says, going down her list. “Read it, read it, read it, read it...This is a good list, Granger, I must admit. It’s got almost all the ones I had on mine.”

“ _Almost?!_ ” 

“But like I said, you’re way behind.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, snatching the list back. “It’s not possible you’ve read _all_ of these. Many of the out-of-print ones are available in the public library, of course, but there are four that no one has seen in centuries. They’ve been lost for ages. You _can’t_ have read them.”

“Hmm,” Draco says, faux considering. “I did, though, because they’re in the Manor library.” Granger blinks at him.

“The Manor has a library?” she asks.

“Yes, of _course_ the Manor has a library, Granger,” Draco says, rather affronted. “We’re not beasts. What kind of manor house would it be without a library?”

“I’m sure it goes right along with the dungeon,” Potter mutters. Draco shoots a glare at him.

“It’s not a _dungeon_ , you twit, it’s a _cellar_ , and its use during that last year wasn’t exactly run by us on a vote.”

“Show me,” Granger says suddenly. Draco stares at her.

“What?” 

“The Malfoy Manor library,” she says. “Show me.” He raises his eyebrows at her.

“ _You_ want to go back there? For more than just a mandatory awkward family dinner?” he asks, himself feeling a bit flustered now. Perhaps the _most_ annoying thing about Granger is that she’s almost always surprising him.

“Yes,” she says, resolute, despite Weasley’s shocked, stammered protests. “It’s _books_ , Malfoy. Surely you know me well enough now to know I don’t quite care about _where_ they’re found, so long as _I_ find them.” She finishes with a matter-of-fact tone and a too-pleasant smile. Draco narrows his eyes at her for a moment.

“That could be very dangerous, Granger. Surely _you_ can assume that my family has a decent number of books in our collection that can bring grave physical harm to Muggleborns at just a touch,” he says. Granger raises an eyebrow, leans back in her seat at the booth, and crosses her arms stubbornly.

“Well, as it turns out, I know you well enough now to know I can trust you not to let me touch those,” she says. 

“Merlin, ‘mione, do you _really_?” Weasley asks, eyes wide. 

Draco holds Granger’s gaze for a full fifteen seconds, calculating, testing her sincerity, and finally, he cracks a smile and leans back in his own seat, giving her an appreciative look. “Fine,” he says. “Sunday, mid-morning.”

\---

On Sunday, mid-morning, Granger marvels at the library, although it does take Draco nine minutes to convince her that none of the books here will harm Muggleborns.

\---

Arthur Weasley does not warm to Draco in this new context. If anything, he seems to dislike Draco even more now, and much more vehemently. Before September, Arthur would regard Draco Malfoy’s presence in his house as one does a faucet that’s been dripping for years despite numerous attempts at repair: irritating, yes, but easily tuned out and ignored, resigned to the idea that the noise is simply a fact of life. Now, though, Arthur speaks to him with faux innocent curiosity that makes it feel like every question is a trick, a trap. Draco answers carefully, measured and deliberate, or else doesn’t answer at all. At first he worried that George thought he was being the rude one for not opening up, for not trying to forge some sort of understanding with George’s father, but sometime in early October, George brings it up himself, says, “You notice the way my dad talks to you? Eerie, that is,” and Draco begins to notice that the other Weasley children seem uncomfortable, too, when Arthur greets Draco. He takes some comfort in that, at least.

Draco doesn’t think it’s going so badly, though. Not as badly as it could be, anyway. Not as badly as he always imagined.

Which is why he’s startled all to hell when, the week before Halloween, he’s sitting quietly on the sofa at the Burrow next to Granger, both their heads buried in books, and a blowout fight between Arthur and George spills into the living room from the kitchen. 

“Why can’t you just accept that he’s part of my life now?” George is yelling, face red with anger. “I’m not asking you to become his biggest fan, but he makes me happy. Don’t you want me to be happy, Dad?” Draco slowly closes his book. Granger follows, tense. On the floor near Granger’s feet, Potter, Weasley, and Ginny look up, alarmed, from a game of Exploding Snap.

“You’re right, I don’t accept it,” Arthur spits. “I can’t accept that you could possibly be happy with someone like him. He’s just like his father, and he’s manipulating you into believing you’re better off with him than without! He is _trying to split our family up_ , George. I can’t believe you’re being so obtuse that you can’t see it!” 

“ _I’m_ being obtuse?! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad! You don’t know him like I do.”

“Oh, please, George, do you even hear yourself? Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” Arthur shouts. George sticks out his chin, proud and stubborn.

“Arthur, please--” comes Molly’s imploring voice from the hall as she hurries into the living room. Draco’s never seen her look this distressed.

“I don’t care how you think it sounds. It’s the truth. And what about you, then? Accusing him of trying to tear our family apart? What the hell is that even _about_ , Dad? Draco doesn’t care enough about us for that! It’s absurd,” George cries, “and you’d rather believe some bollocks like that than the fact that I’m happy with him?”

“It certainly makes more sense!” Arthur yells. “ _Why_ would you be even remotely happy with Draco Malfoy? _Why him_ , of all peop--”

“ _Because he was there with me in the forest!_ ” George screams. From Fleur’s arms, Victoire gurgles into the ringing silence. Bill, Fleur, and Percy all seem to be holding their breaths. Draco yearns to slip through the sofa, through the floor, into the dirt beneath the house. “I dragged him into the Forbidden Forest with me! I was going to find the Resurrection Stone and bring back Fred--”

A collective gasp resounds throughout the room. Draco is the only one unsurprised by George’s words, and as he glances around at the shock and fear on everyone else’s faces, he realizes that George has never told any of them about this, that they had never known how bad it had gotten for George.

“George, please don’t joke about that,” Molly says, terrified.

“It’s not a joke,” George says, sounding miserable. Draco’s chest hurts. He stands and reaches out toward George, touches his elbow. 

“George, you don’t have to do this,” he whispers. George looks at him, eyes red and wild even in their sadness. 

“I want them to know,” he says. “If that’s what it’ll take for them to accept this--I want them to know.” Draco swallows, nods, sits down on the armrest of the sofa, his shoulders slumped as he looks down at his knees, gripping the spine of his book. He feels rather like a reluctantly liberated marionette. George turns back to his father. 

“I _needed_ Fred back,” he says desperately. “None of you know what it’s like! I didn’t just lose a brother! _Half of me is missing_ , it was _ripped_ from me, and I’ll never get it back, and I couldn’t--I _couldn’t_ accept that and--everyone was moving on except me! You lot were all moving on! You wanted to celebrate his _life_ , you were throwing a birthday party like he was still here, and I couldn’t even look in the mirror because I just saw _him_.” Draco winces at the memory of going up to George’s flat for rhubarb pie and seeing all the mirrors shattered, at the heartbreaking knowledge that most of them are still broken.

“George, we didn’t know--” Ginny starts.

“I didn’t want you to know!” George exclaims. “I didn’t want _anyone_ to know! I didn’t want anyone to see how fucked up I was. I didn’t want you to know I was hollow. But Draco _did_. We--we were the only ones--the whole of the Wizarding World was getting back to normal, celebrating a victory, and we were left behind. We were stuck. _Together_. And he’s the only person, the only thing that made me feel _anything_. Dad, _please_ understand,” he says softly, begging. “It’s not like I set out to fall in love with the son of your mortal enemy or whatever.”

“Oh, you’re in love with him, are you?” Arthur says lowly. “No, George, I’m sorry, but I _cannot_ understand. I _cannot_ accept this.”

“Dad--” BIll says, but Arthur barrels forward.

“I don’t know what kind of hold he’s got on you, but it’s a lie, George. I know the Malfoy disposition, and I know he doesn’t need magic to manipulate and control you. You don’t need him in order to have a normal life, to move on, or whatever he’s got you thinking.”

Draco says nothing, speaks not a word in his own defense. He lets out a silent sigh, somehow resisting the strong urge to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. He wants to leave. He doesn’t need to hear more confirmation of all the horrible things he already knows that people think of him, much less from his boyfriend’s father. He feels exhausted all of a sudden, like the tension of the past two months has finally broken and the weight of it has all crashed down on him.

“Draco isn’t the one trying to control me, Dad,” George says.

“But _I’m_ the one with your true best interests at heart,” Arthur snaps. “You need to make a choice.” George gapes at him.

“You’re not seriously giving me an ultimatum,” he says in disbelief. 

“Arthur, _please_!” Molly cries, her voice shaky. 

There is what has to be a whole minute in which the only sounds are the clock ticking, the baby cooing, and Draco’s own heart beating in his chest. He looks up tentatively, in time to see George give his father one final look of fury and defiance, and in that moment, Draco knows what’s about to happen. He reaches down with his book and manages to get a hand on his bag just before George grabs his free hand and Disapparates them back to Spinner’s End.

“I can’t _believe_ him!” George exclaims immediately, and sets off fuming and swearing about his father. Draco wordlessly places his book into his bag and sets it aside. He wants to undress, to take a shower, to go for a second run. He wants to be asleep.

“Can’t you?” he finally says after a few minutes. He’s vaguely surprised to hear that his own voice is hoarse, as if he was the one doing all the yelling back at the Burrow. “He’s just saying what everyone thinks.” George whips around to look at him. Draco can see his fury drop instantly.

“Draco, it’s not...not everyone still thinks of you that way,” he says, though he sounds unsure. “It’s been a long time, it’s--”

“You can’t sever ties with your dad,” Draco says, sniffing. He’s not sure why this is hitting him so hard. “You can’t do that. I can’t be the one to come between you and your family. You can’t prove him right about me.”

“Hey,” George says softly, standing suddenly in front of Draco, his hands on Draco’s arms. “I won’t do that to you. I promise, I won’t.” His hands move to cup Draco’s face, his jaw. Draco only realizes that he’s been crying when George gently wipes away a tear with his thumb. “You know he’s wrong about you, and me, and us, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Draco whispers, tears flowing down his face now. George leans forward and kisses him briefly. 

“I love you,” George says.

A week later, they’re back at the Burrow for dinner. It’s inconceivably tense, particularly between George and Arthur, but it’s not as bad as it could be, again. Another week later and things are back to normal, or at least a relative definition thereof, and George says, “Dad will come around to you eventually. Just give it time,” so often that Draco assumes he’s trying to convince himself just as much as Draco. 

He doesn’t convince Draco.

\---

On the fourteenth of November, it’s Draco’s mother’s birthday, and Draco and George are going from the shop to the Manor directly for dinner. Along with Pansy and Blaise, Auntie Shafiq is slated to make an appearance, and George has been excited about it for days. He’s got a last-minute deposit to make in the shop’s Gringotts vault, though, before the bank closes, and Draco, convinced that the mistreatment of Griphook in his family’s home during the war has made all of goblinkind despise him, insists on remaining outside. He’s got his notes on wand cores to review, anyway, and he tells George to hurry up and not keep him waiting, and smirks at the way George rolls his eyes before disappearing through the Gringotts doors. 

Draco sits on the ground, leaning back against the wall just beside the doors of the bank, and opens his journal, soon focused entirely on his notes. He barely notices the nightly closing down of Diagon Alley, the shopkeepers locking doors and shuttering windows, the loud cracks here and there of people leaving without the bother of going through the Leaky, the light fading shop by shop from the street. He only realizes it when the lamp directly above him shuts off, surprising him. He looks up at it, frowning, before looking back at the journal in his hand, squinting to read in the sudden dimness. He’s about to sigh and give it up for a bad job when a curious thing occurs.

The book flies out of his hands. 

He stares at where it lands, about six meters from him, and experiences a split second of confusion before he realizes what it means: someone is about to attack him, and whoever it is wants him to be as scared as possible, wants him to know what’s coming, wanted to alert him to their presence and experience the precise slow panic that he’s experiencing in this moment. He stares at his journal, so far from him, and thinks, _Good, effective strategy_ , even as a chill of terror and dread shoots through him.

He manages to stand up rather stiffly, glances around as well as he can without moving his head - he’s not going to give his attacker the satisfaction of seeing his fear so early - and comes to the sudden and acute understanding that he is completely alone out here now. His mind works quickly, trying to find a way out of this, and he settles on the simple yet safe indignity of sprinting into Gringotts and trying his luck with the goblins in the lobby when the street explodes below his feet, knocking him to the ground. 

He just barely catches his fall with his hands. The smoke behind him, the noise around him, the pain in his palms and twinging weakness in his wrist, the horrifying pounding of his heart - he’s hit with a memory of the Battle of Hogwarts so vivid that he chokes, has to gasp for breath. He turns over frantically, groping for his useless wand, and hears an awful voice yell, “ _Crucio!_ ”

A searing bolt of pain shoots through his body, worse than anything he’s ever felt, more enduring, and he hears a distant, unbearable scream. He realizes, too late, that it’s his own.

When the pain lets up, he gasps for relief and scrambles to his feet. He’s disoriented and unsteady, and he hears laughter coming from somewhere, loud and horrible and echoing. It reminds him of Bellatrix, but if she were two - there’s two voices, at least. _Two voices_. If he survives this, then he’ll need to remember details like that. _Two voices_.

His attackers let him stumble a few steps before the second voice shouts, “ _Crucio!_ ” again. He falls, the pain of the curse magnified in his arms as he braces his fall with his forearms guarding his head. He loses track of time like this, screaming in agony on the ground. It lets up again, and someone kicks him over onto his back before he can even realize that the worst of the pain is beginning to fade. It’s too dark for him to see anything, and even if it was lighter out, he can still barely open his eyes, and with a shuddering, shallow breath, he thinks, _This is overdue. This is what I did to those Death Eaters, to those first years. This is what they felt. This is what I deserve._

Draco knew, all along, that he could never fully escape this.

The two voices take turns. “ _Crucio!_ ” “ _Crucio!_ ” “ _Crucio!_ ” “ _Crucio!_ ” Draco loses count after four. He writhes in pain and screams until his throat is raw. Surely someone can hear him...but would they even consider him worth rescuing? He chokes on his own breath, his voice thinning.

He hears footsteps retreating then, feels the hurt slowly ebb, and suddenly a new voice, cold and familiar somehow, hovers over his face. It spits, “This is for my father, you coward,” and then comes the cold, sharp pain of a knife stabbing into Draco’s side, just below his ribs. Draco’s eyes jerk open. He doesn’t scream or shout, doesn’t make a sound at all, isn’t sure if he even could now. He just takes in a single breath and holds it, as if he can get through this so long as he keeps the air in his lungs. He feels the knife being pulled from his body before entering again, lower this time, more frontal, and draws in another shuddering breath.

He thinks of George. He thinks of Blaise and Pansy and Calliope. He thinks of his parents. It’s his mother’s birthday. He can’t die on his mother’s birthday. He can’t die on his mother’s birthday, not after what she did for him, not after everything she sacrificed. 

The knife leaves him again and its sudden absence, its threatened return, stirs something in Draco. He screams, finally. George’s name. 

The figure above him jerks away suddenly, the voice swears, and an unpleasant crack sounds through the street as Draco is left alone there, bleeding out in Diagon Alley, gazing up at the night sky. And as suddenly as his attacker disappears, George is there with him, terror in his bulging eyes. He presses his shaking hands to Draco’s wounds for a moment before, seeming horrified by the amount of blood, trails his hands through Draco’s hair instead, accidentally streaking red over Draco’s brow. Draco can’t speak, can’t move.

“No, no no no no, Draco, no, please,” George breathes, desperate and frenzied. Draco can just make out the tears in George’s eyes, can feel them falling onto his cheeks. “Please, please. Please be alright. No, no, please, please--” Draco hears a crack, very distantly, and has the sensation over being squeezed all over, and sees nothing but black. His brain very faintly registers the new sanitized air he’s breathing as George shouts, “He needs a Healer! _Now!_ ” And then...nothing.

\---

It’s the low hiss of his father and George whispering to each other on his left that wakes him, he’ll think later, but it could very well be the iron grip that his mother has on his right hand, or her hair tickling his skin as she bows her head low over their clasps hands.

“I’m so sorry,” George is saying. “I should’ve insisted that he come inside Gringotts with me. It was stupid to let him stay outside.”

“We don’t blame you, George,” Draco’s father says. “From what we know now, little as it is, it seems like his attackers were waiting for him, likely trailing him. It’s lucky, really, that you were there.”

A tremor of recognition is what shakes him fully awake, his mind putting together a puzzle that he wasn’t able to complete in his earlier state. It’s not exactly a pleasant picture, but it does at least provide an explanation that makes rational sense. Draco opens his eyes just a fraction, takes in the images of the people around him, another unpleasant picture in itself. George looks awful, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. Draco’s father looks nearly as bad as he did at the end of the war, the more collected, youthful appearance that crept back into Lucius’ face over the past two years gone again to make room for the aged look of terror that clouded his expression since his stint in Azkaban. Draco can’t see his mother’s face at first, hidden as it is by her long hair as she kisses the knuckles of Draco’s hand, but when he squeezes in response, she jerks her head up, eyes wild, face haunted.

“Draco,” she says hoarsely, and Lucius and George look at him, too, wide-eyed. “Draco, are you--please tell me that you’re--”

“Happy birthday, Mother. My gift this year is that I’m alright,” Draco says. Then, most incredibly, his mother begins to cry. “Mother--” His father reaches forward and closes his hand around Draco’s arm, like he has to make sure Draco is truly awake, before letting out an intense, shuddering breath. George slumps in his chair with a huge sigh.

“I’ll go find the mediwitch, yeah?” he says shakily, looking very much like the mere prospect of leaving Draco’s side for even a moment causes him anguish. She walks in then, though, and George looks immensely relieved. 

“I just have to perform some evaluative spells now that you’re awake,” she says, unsmiling, and proceeds to do so without waiting for any sort of acknowledgment from Draco. Mostly she just waves her wand around and takes notes. Draco doesn’t feel anything more than a slight tickle until she examines the wounds on his side, which somehow still feel just as fresh as they did when he first received them. 

“Why does it still hurt so badly?” he asks through gritted teeth, trying not to show his parents and George how much pain he’s in.

“The knife used to stab you seems to have been Cursed or soaked in poison,” the witch says, preparing new bandages. “The standard first treatment for wounds of this nature is dittany, of course, but that actually made you bleed more profusely, so we had to go further into our repertoire for a treatment that worked, and unfortunately for you, it could only address the bleeding and stop that, rather than any other aspect of your injury. You’ll still feel the pain of it for up to a few weeks, most likely, and we’ve got our potioneers whipping up something to mend the skin, but there will definitely be scarring.” Draco winces as she applies the bandages to his side.

“Well, good,” he says dryly. “What’s another two scars on my torso?” 

“That’s the spirit, Mr. Malfoy,” the mediwitch says absentmindedly, giving the finished bandages a pat and causing Draco to hiss and grit his teeth again. A Healer enters the room then, looking over the details of Draco’s file. The mediwitch crosses the room to her and they speak in hushed tones for a few moments before the Healer approaches Draco’s bed.

“Mr. Malfoy, you bear all the signs, so I’m just going to be straightforward with you,” she says. “How many times did they use the Cruciatus Curse on you?” Draco’s mother gasps and digs her fingernails into his wrist again. George swears under his breath. Draco’s father makes a strangled sound and drops his head to his hands. It’s him who Draco glances at as he grinds his teeth before answering.

“At least six--” a strangled noise from his father again, a tighter grip from his mother, “--but I--I lost count--”

“Completely understandable,” the Healer says. She moves closer to him and pulls out her wand, waves it in his direction a few times. More evaluative spells, he assumes. They tingle a bit this time, leave a cooling sensation on his skin. She gives him a thoughtful look. Her eyes are just like Calliope’s. 

She steps back and pockets her wand again, says, “Aurors will be here within the hour to take your statement about the attack - it’s standard procedure to alert them when there’s evidence of an Unforgivable - but it’s entirely up to you what to tell them, or whether you want to speak to them at all. As for treatment, the worst has passed--”

“The worst being the actual Curse, I presume?” Draco says. She gives him a soft smile.

“Precisely. You’ll most likely be unsteady on your feet for up to two weeks, and with that high number of Curses, you’ll probably feel some unpleasant after effects as well. Headaches, blurred vision, drowsiness, that sort of thing. Typically, I would say it’s nothing some potions couldn’t fix, but the truth is, anything we can give you for that would interact with your Draught of Peace, make it less effective, so--”

“I’ll deal with the after effects,” Draco says immediately. The Healer nods. 

“Good choice.”

As soon as the mediwitch and Healer leave, Pansy rushes in, frenzied, with Blaise on her heels, looking just a touch unraveled, which Draco knows to mean that he’s feeling just as fraught as Pansy appears. Blaise drops into a chair next to George and Lucius and, when Pansy joins Narcissa in fussing over Draco, leans toward the other men and begins another whispered conversation. Draco tries to listen, but with his ears still ringing a bit and the voices of his mother and Pansy closer and louder to him, he hears nothing after Blaise’s initial question: “Did he say who did this to him?”

After a few minutes, Granger walks in still wearing her work robes, looking quite relieved to see Draco awake and mostly well. He’s rather surprised to see her, but George smiles when he notices her, stands to greet her, clearly grateful for her presence. Her eyes dart between Pansy and Blaise before drawing up a chair at the foot of the bed, a fair distance from both of Draco’s friends. Draco can’t help but notice how tired she looks.

“I was working late again,” she says when Draco mentions it. “I was just leaving the Ministry when I heard. From Ron and Harry, actually. Training to graduate from Junior Auror status requires a few months of night shifts, somewhat sporadic, and this is one of their weeks, so I was just dropping by the department to say hi before going home, and they told me there was a report of your attack--”

“Oh, _please_ don’t tell me that Potter and Weasley are the Aurors assigned to my case,” Draco says with a groan. Granger lets out an anxious little laugh and shakes her head.

“No,” she assures him, “although they did say they wanted to volunteer for it. I told them it wouldn’t be good for your recovery.” She gives him a small wry smile. Draco laughs.

“I knew I could trust you, Granger,” he says. From the corners of his eyes, he can see Blaise and Pansy blanch at his words. He hides his smile. “Any idea which Aurors I’ll be seeing then?”

“Probably Tracey Davis or Millicent Bulstrode, plus a supervising Junior Auror,” Granger says, an expression of curiosity dawning on her face with the topic. “It’s interesting, really. Tracey and Millicent both started over a year after Ron and Harry and Seamus and all, but they’ve advanced so far in such a short time that they’ve surpassed the Trainee title and are Junior Aurors already.”

“Sounds like Slytherins,” Draco, Pansy, and Blaise say in unison. George and Granger exchange an eyeroll. 

“Anyway, Junior Aurors need to have a certain number of cases in which they take victim statements, and the first two need to be supervised by a more experienced Junior Auror,” she explains, grimacing. “I know it sounds a bit convoluted, but the Auror Department had to be basically revolutionized after the war. There are more stringent standards now, more thorough training, mandatory continuing education, ethics classes….”

“Something tells me that you had something to do with that department change, Miss Granger,” Draco’s mother says with a tone of fascination. Granger shrugs in an artificial modesty that makes Draco snort. 

“Ron and Harry were rather annoyed with me,” she says, a grin playing on her face. “They tried to ask Shacklebolt if they could be grandfathered in under the old methods. I believe he laughed them out of his office.”

“Not a bad man, that Shacklebolt,” Draco’s father mumbles.

Tracey Davis is, in fact, one of the Aurors who visits him for his statement, with a supervising Seamus Finnigan standing awkwardly behind her. Occasionally Finnigan looks as though he’s about to remind Tracey of something, but then in the next moment, she evidently does it, and Finnigan steps back and snaps his mouth shut, rendered useless again. It would be amusing if Draco wasn’t in a hospital bed while witnessing it.

He walks Tracey through the attack, mostly honest. They agree that the two who were Cursing him were likely hired thugs. Tracey tells him that a network of hit wizards and witches has cropped up since the war, which would make it nearly impossible to find his particular attackers if the Auror Department didn’t have multiple contacts in Knockturn Alley. She asks, “Did you recognize any of them? The person who stabbed you, perhaps?”

“No, I couldn’t see them,” Draco says smoothly. “It was dark and I could barely keep my eyes open--”

“That’s alright,” Tracey says, finishing a final note and closing her notebook. “Hopefully we can get the hit wizard and witch to talk when we find them.” As she and Finnigan are leaving, she looks back and says, softly, as sincerely as Tracey Davis - who once poisoned every single older Slytherin boy in order to cover her tracks after Warrington jokingly asked her if she fancied Daphne, and actually earned points for it from Snape for getting the potion exactly right - ever gets, “I’m glad you’re alright, Draco.”

“Pansy, would you mind going up to the tearoom and getting me a bag of crisps?” Blaise asks as soon as the door closes. Pansy blinks at him. “Maybe you could notify Longbottom and Lovegood of the circumstances as well,” he adds gently. Pansy sniffs, rolls her shoulders back.

“Yes, that would probably be good,” she says, standing. 

“Bag of crisps does sound good,” George mutters. Hermione glances at him, and he looks at her with big eyes. “Please, Hermione?” She rolls her eyes a bit, shakes her head.

“Only because I know I wouldn’t want to leave Ron’s side if he were in this state,” she says, getting to her feet as well. She and Pansy look at each other for a moment, their expressions unreadable. Finally, Pansy touches Narcissa’s shoulder, and Granger clears her throat. “Er, Lu--Lucius?” Draco’s father looks at her sharply, surprised at being addressed in this manner, by this person. “Would you like to get some tea?”

“The walk would do you well,” Pansy adds. Lucius blinks, looks down at Draco. 

“Go on, Father,” Draco says. “It’s not as if I’m going anywhere.” Lucius nods. 

“Narcissa,” he says as he stands, crossing to her. Pansy backs away, turns toward the door as Lucius takes Narcissa’s hand. “Let’s go get some tea, darling, and some sandwiches. We missed your dinner, after all.” Narcissa is most reluctant to leave, but Draco squeezes her hand again, insists that she take a short break, try to relax and remember that he’s alright, and finally she nods and leaves with her husband, Pansy, and Granger. Draco’s turning his head to look at George and Blaise, with a mind to tell them to go get some tea as well, but they round on him before he can get a word out.

“So who was it?” Blaise asks. “Who attacked you?”

“What are you talking about?” Draco says, brow furrowed. “I just _said_ that I didn’t recognize any of them.”

“No, you _said_ you didn’t _see_ any of them,” George says, his eyes sharp and shrewd. 

“But you heard them,” Blaise says.

“Yes, I heard them, in that I heard two voices shouting curses at me over and over again!” Draco exclaims.

“‘He said something just before he stabbed me,’” George says, in a rather excellent impression of Draco. “ _That’s_ what you told Tracey Davis.”

“So you heard his voice, too,” Blaise says. Draco stares at them.

“You know, I don’t like this,” he says, gesturing between the two of them. “I should never have properly introduced you two.”

“Who was it, Draco?” George says. Draco sighs. With Blaise and George both on it, it’s a lost cause.

“I didn’t recognize the voices of whoever was cursing me, alright?” he says. “I swear. But the one who stabbed me….” He purses his lips, cringes. “It was Theodore Nott.” 

“ _Theodore Nott?!_ ” George says. “Your classmate--but he shared dormitory with you--why would--”

“It makes sense,” Blaise says slowly. “Draco’s testimony at the trials helped put Theodore’s father in Azkaban.”

“Yes, exactly, it was retaliation,” Draco says harshly, “and it’s done now. He and I are even. So you two don’t need to do a damn thing, alright? Just leave it alone.”

“But Draco--”

“ _Leave it alone_.” 

“Fine,” Blaise and George say after a long silence.

The two of them disappear later, amid the new arrival of Longbottom and Luna. When Draco looks around the room and notices that Blaise and George are suddenly absent, he narrows his eyes and says, “Where did Blaise and George go?”

“Oh, George mentioned he was going to get some tea and a sandwich,” Granger says.

“Blaise went to tell Calliope what happened,” Pansy says, then, wide-eyed, “Not the part with the--just that you’re in hospital, I mean.” She shakes her head fondly. “He’ll have some believable story, I’m sure.” 

Draco is suspicious still, but Luna strings a bit of yellow yarn along the ceiling above his head, then, assuring him that its presence will ward off some sort of spirit that Draco’s never heard of, so he doesn’t have attention to focus on that particular anxiety for the time being. George is back, anyway, before Draco falls asleep, sinking into a chair next to him, holding his hand as he drifts off. Draco is discharged from St. Mungo’s the next morning, and Narcissa hovers anxiously behind George as he watches and listens very closely to the mediwitch explaining how to apply the special healing potion to Draco’s wounds and clean the bandages. George takes him back to Spinner’s End and won’t take his eyes off Draco for anything. He scowls and says, “That’s why Percy’s there,” when Draco suggests he go check on the shop, and sits on the sofa with Draco’s legs over his lap as Draco finishes reviewing his notes on wand cores - George said he went back to Diagon Alley and retrieved it during the same time when Granger said he’d gone up to the tearoom, which confirmed the lie for Draco.

He doesn’t bring it up until evening, though, in the bathroom, when George silently and gently dabs the potion on Draco’s wounds, where the skin is slowly mending but the pain is still harsh. Draco says, quietly, “You and Blaise went to find Theodore Nott, didn’t you?”

“We took care of it,” George says immediately, with not a moment of hesitation. Draco looks at him, searching, but George doesn’t meet his eyes, too intent on following the mediwitch’s instructions to the letter. 

“I told you not to get involved,” Draco says finally, looking away. “What he did to me was revenge - or, avenge, perhaps. It’s understandable, regardless. It was a Death Eater’s fight and it was over when he fucking stabbed me and left me to bleed out in Diagon Alley. You shouldn’t have dragged yourself into this.” George gives him a sharp look.

“Theodore Nott dragged me into this when he set professional thugs to torture you in a public place the moment I wasn’t with you and then tried to kill you,” he says. Draco looks back at him then, sees the fierceness in George’s eyes fade into desperation. “He tried to take you from me, and he can’t...he can’t take you from me. You’re mine, and I wasn’t there to protect you then, so all I could do was take care of it after the fact, alright?” He blinks rapidly, swallows, looks down again to begin applying new bandages. “He won’t bother you ever again.” Draco bites his lip.

“Very well,” he says after a minute or so. “Just...please tell me you didn’t do anything...unseemly.” George chuckles.

“I didn’t. I wanted to,” he says. “I _really_ wanted to, but Blaise wouldn’t let me. Said you’d never forgive him if he let me waste an Unforgivable on Theodore Nott.” Draco rolls his eyes good-naturedly, laughing a bit himself.

“Small mercies in the form of Blaise Zabini, then, I suppose,” he says quietly. He winces as George does the final check to see that the bandages are affixed properly. 

“Sorry,” George whispers, wiping his hands clean with a damp washcloth. 

“Make it up to me?” Draco asks. George smiles, shifts so he’s not pressing against Draco’s wounded side, and kisses him.

\---

George tries to convince Draco to rest for another week, but Draco says, “If your plans for something so important were derailed by injury, would you then be resting _one more week_?” and George, knowing full well that Draco has a point, sighs in resignation.

“Where to, then?”

They travel to Verzy, France, where they wander through a forest of dwarf beech trees. During summer, these trees are said to be beautiful, spreading their leaves wide like umbrellas, the weight of them tugging the branches down until the forest looks populated with hundreds of leafy igloos. But here in late November, the leaves are all gone, the trees naked. The gnarled, crooked trunks and branches bent and drooping low. Two years ago, their appearance would have alarmed Draco, made him uncomfortable, made him decide that he was wrong about beech being the wood he needs. Now, though, he looks at them with admiration, their twisted ugliness exposed. He feels a kinship with them.

“It’s a relief, isn’t it, getting to shed all the parts of that attractive facade?” he mumbles to the trees as he passes them, lays hands on them. He’s got a good feeling about this forest. George follows him closely, still a bit nervous about Draco exerting himself too much. Draco’s side indeed twinges considerably even now, but it’s better when he’s up and about, so this walk is nice, the air crisp and healing. 

Draco stops suddenly, miles into the forest. Ahead of him stands a tree like any other he’s passed this morning, except that it’s glowing, shimmering. 

“What’s wrong?” George says. “Why’d you stop? Are you feeling alright?”

“Do you see that tree?” Draco asks, pointing. George steps up beside him. 

“Which tree?” he says. “They all look more or less the same, Draco. You’re going to need to be more specific if you want my arboreal opinions.”

“It’s glowing,” Draco says softly. “I think it’s mine.” As he walks closer, the tree shimmers more brightly, like it’s happy to see him. Like it was just waiting for him to find it. Draco feels like his heart might leap from his chest. He always knew that he would know when he found the right tree. He never imagined that the right tree would know as well. He places his hands on the gnarled trunk, feels it vibrating under his palms. His breath catches.

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the bark. “Please, please,” he whispers. “Trust me.” The bark warms and the tree trembles, but Draco doesn’t move, doesn’t even open his eyes until he feels a gentle tap on his shoulder. He turns slowly, cautious, and sees something so beautiful, so magical that it brings tears to his eyes: a small branch curving to present itself to him, almost bowing. He keeps one hand pressed to the tree while he reaches for the branch, grasps it in his hand. The tree gives it easily enough, though he swears he can feel the slightest hesitant tug at first, a farewell, and he spies a little bowtruckle on the branch above, appearing to give a sweet, sad wave as its tree sacrifices a part of itself. His fingers grow warm and tingly as he holds the branch. Under his free hand, the tree trunk shivers. Draco rests his head against it again, closes his eyes for another moment, and says reverently, “Thank you.” 

When Draco turns away from the tree, George is standing there, mouth agape, completely awestruck in a way that rarely happens to him. “It just gave itself to you,” he says, stunned. “Is that really what it’s like?”

Draco holds the branch in both hands now and looks down at it, takes a second to feel the magic pulse through it, somehow stronger now in this small, disconnected piece than it was as a whole tree. “I believe so, yes,” he says thoughtfully. He looks up at George. “I think I can go home and rest now.”

Once back at Spinner’s End, Draco sets the branch on a table beside the sofa for safekeeping before opening his journal. He can focus on finding a core now, and he will, tomorrow. Today, though, he flips to the pages that are full of sketches, wand designs he’s drawn over the past year. He gazes down at them as he begins to whittle the branch - nothing settled yet, just whatever he needs to do to get it down to the length it’s meant to be for him - and tries to decide which one he likes best.


	12. Chapter 12

Arthur Weasley comes down with a bad case of black cat flu and Draco, still trying to believe that George was right about Arthur coming round to him eventually, still trying to prove himself, goes along with the Weasley children to visit their father in St. Mungo’s. According to Percy, who brings a thin scarf to cover his mouth and nose before entering the hospital room, there’s a nasty bug going around the Ministry of Magic, and Arthur’s age simply makes him more susceptible. 

“We shouldn’t worry, though,” Percy says.

“Is that why you’re wearing a scarf round your face?” Draco asks, amused as they enter. Percy flushes, but he rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Can’t ever be too safe, Malfoy,” he says.

“That there could’ve been your whole report on regulating cauldron thickness, eh, Perce?” George asks with a grin. Percy sighs.

Arthur’s certainly not in a private room, but the other three beds are empty, so it might as well be all his own. Molly is there already, at her husband’s side, busying herself with the pillows and blankets. Arthur, though clearly fairly ill, is in good spirits, and he greets Percy, George, Ron, Potter, and Granger with smiles and boisterous salutations. His face falls immediately when his eyes land on Draco. He looks away when Draco gives him an awkward smile, which, well, is probably a good sign, in terms of the man’s health. It would be a mark of a truly disastrous sickness if Arthur looked happy to see Draco. 

He sighs and pulls one of the chair against the wall slightly closer toward the bed as all the family - _the real family_ , Draco thinks with vague bitterness, _the only ones that will ever count_ \- crowds around Arthur, checking in on him. Draco waits about a minute before pulling his journal from his coat pocket, flipping to his notes on wand cores again. He’s fairly certain that he knows what the core for his wand needs to be, but he’s been hoping for the past two weeks that he’s wrong, that some other equally brilliant idea will come to him, so he doesn’t have to make a defeated Apparition of Shame to Auntie Shafiq and her mad old house to get his hands on it. Granger sits down next to him after another minute or two, leans close enough to see what’s on his pages and gasps quietly, says with wide, eager eyes, “I was just reading the other day - did you know in Madagascar, wizards use lemur claws as a wand core?” Draco looks up at her and smiles. Merlin help him, but he really has grown rather fond of her.

Now that Granger has moved away from the bedside, Draco can see Arthur clearly enough to note that his skin is tinged a sickly shade of amber, and his eyes give off the strange impression that their pupils were, merely hours ago, in the shape of vertical slits. He also seems to keep having to fight the urge to rub his face on things, and keeps edging over in his bed to follow the streak of sunlight reaching him, and, every once in awhile, coughs with a deeply unpleasant squelching sound. Draco shudders, and then a funny memory pokes at his mind. He turns to Granger with a mischievous grin.

“Does the sight bring back memories for you?” he asks. At her questioning gaze, he adds, “Perhaps of the first time you made Polyjuice Potion?” Granger rolls her eyes dramatically, a blush rising to her cheeks. Draco snickers. “How’d you even manage to confuse a cat hair with Millie’s? She had short hair, sure, but not _that_ short.”

“We wouldn’t have had to do that at all if you weren’t such a tosser!” she says. Then, crossing her arms over her chest, “I would say you were at your peak in second year, but….”

“Hmm,” Draco says, nodding thoughtfully. “My peak was probably when I took the Mark, yeah.” Granger pulls a face. 

“Almost certainly, yes,” she says. 

“You and I could’ve made quick work of solving that particular mystery, you know,” Draco says after a moment. 

“Slytherin’s monster and the Chamber of Secrets?” she asks. She narrows her eyes, looks up toward the ceiling, thinking. “Yeah, I believe you’re right.”

“He’s right about what?” Weasley says as he takes a seat next to Granger.

“Me being unbelievably smarter than you and Potter combined,” Draco says dryly, going back to his notes. Granger sighs and turns to soothe her insufferable boyfriend’s undoubtedly stung feelings. Weasley really is the easiest target. Draco could give up, move onto something more challenging, but then, why disrespect the last nine and a quarter years of work by just abandoning it like that? 

An hour later, after Ginny has arrived, fresh from a Quidditch match against the Wigtown Wanderers and rather sweaty still, and after Bill has sent word that he can’t visit because he doesn’t want to catch anything that might get Victoire sick, a mediwizard wanders in with a potion meant to cure the hairballs. As the others get a laugh out of that, begin teasing Arthur for it, Draco glances at the potion and thinks, _That’s not right._

“What potion is that, exactly?” he asks, rising from his seat to get a closer look. The mediwizard glances at him, an offended expression on his face.

“Felinus Pilobezo,” the mediwizard says with a sneer, holding the goblet toward Draco mockingly. “Pass your muster?”

“Actually, no,” Draco says shamelessly. He’s made this potion before, when he was very young, at - well, at _his_ house, years before it was his - and he remembers it vividly: the smell of lavender, the licorice black color, the texture of liquid silk. As a boy, he thought it was interesting and quite nice that the potion for curing such a specific, disgusting condition was so pleasing to the senses. So he _knows_ , is the thing, that whatever the mediwizard’s got in that goblet - gurgling, putrid orange, and smelling of rotting vegetables - is not Felinus Pilobezo. 

“ _No?!_ ” the mediwizard exclaims. He raises an eyebrow and hands the glass to Arthur. 

“Arthur, don’t drink that!” Draco says. He turns toward the mediwizard. “ _Everything_ about that potion is wrong. Have you gone through _any_ training at all? You can’t possibly have, or you’d know what that potion is supposed to look like and smell like, and you’d know that _that_ \--” he points to the potion in Arthur’s hand, “--is wrong.”

“Now, see here--” the mediwizard starts, puffing out his chest, and for split second, Draco realizes what it was like to live with Percy before the war. 

“What’s wrong with it, Draco?” Molly asks, eyes full of concern.

“It’s meant to be black and-- _Don’t drink it!_ ” Draco dashes forward as Arthur goes to drink the potion, smacks the goblet out of his hands. It falls to the floor across the room with several heavy clunks, its contents splattering over the tile, immediately burning holes into the flooring, the scent of smoking wafting and the sound of scorching crackling throughout the room. Molly gasps. Granger, closest to the spilled potion, springs backward. Draco, suddenly feeling extremely mad, corners the dumbstruck mediwizard against the wall.

“Are you trying to poison Arthur Weasley?” he snaps. “ _Arthur Weasley?!_ Really? A war hero?”

“Poison him?!” the mediwizard shrieks. “What are you on about? I had no idea!” Draco seethes, pulls his hawthorn wand from his pocket, and the mediwizard begins to laugh, scoffing and dubious. “And what are you gonna do with that, then? Everyone knows you don’t have magic anymore. Your precious _Arthur Weasley_ there made sure everyone knows you’re good as a Squib. Why d’you think you got attacked last month, eh?”

Draco’s never heard a silence like this one. 

Even the singeing sound from the floor has stopped. He’s frozen. The whole room is. In the corner of his eye, he can see Granger working it out, her jaw dropping, her brow furrowing, her dark skin growing pallid. Draco’s beaten her to the conclusion, though. He swallows. He takes one step back.

The mediwizard turns toward the others. “I apologize for the mistake with the potion. I’ll be right back with one that’s been made right,” he says, and walks out, leaving Draco there, staring at the wall with his wand held out like an idiot.

He hears George say, as if from a distance, in a slow and dangerously low voice, “You _told_ people he didn’t have magic, Dad?” 

He hears Arthur sputtering, finally managing to get out, “I didn’t intend for anything bad to happen to him! It’s not like I went out of my way to make sure he was attacked! I may have mentioned it once or twice at work--”

He hears George’s voice again, louder this time, say, “What was it, Dad? You really couldn’t resist sharing a laugh with the office about a former Death Eater losing his magic? Or was your angle more about your old nemesis’ child finally getting what he deserves?”

He hears Arthur say, defensively, “Is it really so wrong for a man to appreciate the irony of the situation?” 

He hears Molly sigh and quietly say, “Oh, Arthur,” with intense, crushing disappointment.

He hears Weasley, sounding confused, say, “But, Dad, you lectured us for an hour about how important it was to keep that a secret.”

He hears Ginny, sounding angry, say, “You forbade us from ever telling _anyone_! You warned us about what could happen to him if word got out!”

He hears Percy, sounding betrayed, say, “You _knew_ how dangerous it was, Father. You knew and you told people anyway. You let it happen.”

He hears these things. He does. In the future, in the painful moments when he looks back on this one, he’ll remember hearing these things. He’ll remember and draw strength and warmth from their tacit support of him. But now, he can only truly hear the pounding of blood in his ears and the sound of something shattering.

Draco’s understanding of the world has always placed the Weasley family firmly on the side of Good, comical capital letters and all. Even during the war, even before it, when goodness was still something to be inherently derided, something that made them weak, something that meant that they would always lose. The Weasleys could always be counted on to do the Right Thing, which is what made them so pathetically predictable, such easy targets. Even when Draco considered them all to be flea-bitten, poverty-stricken blood traitor mongrels, and not by any means _good people_ , he still considered them to be Good people, and rolled his eyes and spat at the capitalized _G_ as they passed.

And since the war, he doesn’t see goodness as something to be inherently derided anymore. He knows it just as something that simply is, that some people are or aren’t, and the Weasleys still are, as ever, and he, Draco, is not. He knows he isn’t. He knows he never was, never will be, and even at his lowest, his most desperate, he never particularly wanted it. He didn’t have to put in much effort with George, when it was just them. George knew what he was getting when he got Draco, wanted it anyway. That George wanted him, loved him, was enough for him.

But since their families found out about their relationship, Draco has been trying to, like, _prove_ to the Weasleys, this self-righteously Good family, that he’s enough for their son, their brother. He’s been trying to show them that he’s _worthy_ of them, of their space, of George’s love and attention and time. He’s endured every cutting, unnecessary insult from Arthur without biting back, has held his own tongue against the worst things he could say to Weasley and Potter and Ginny, and he’s demanded nothing from them, neither gratitude nor apology nor explicit approval. He’s been breaking his damn back trying to seem like someone that everyone can see as a Good Person, for months now.

And it’s crystallizing for him in this moment, hard as marble, standing here in St. Mungo’s staring at this wall, that it’s not that simple. He’s been trying to shrug off Meriweather’s words, to convince himself that it can be as clear cut as Good and Bad, as the way he’s always viewed the universe, but it’s just...not. He’s been wrong his whole life, and he’s been wasting his time and effort, draining his emotions, trying to prove that he can be something that he doesn’t even truly want to be, just so he can break even with someone who, as it turns out, isn’t the Good person he’d always thought. 

And it’s put him in danger. He could have died three weeks ago because of this, very nearly did, simply because Arthur _does not like him_ , and does not like him _so much_ that he’s eager, evidently, to flout his own personal ethical and moral codes to make it known. So much of this suddenly feels like a pointless risk. He can’t believe he’s been so bloody _stupid_. He can’t believe he ever thought that this could work.

His bones feel stiff when he finally moves, only to turn toward the Weasleys and Potter and Granger for just a moment, long enough for them to fall silent and look at him. He opens his mouth to speak, but instead just meets George’s eyes, shakes his head once, turns around and walks out. He quickens his strides down the corridor, hearing George calling after him from the room, then from the hall far behind him, and he decides, on the flimsiest of whims, to risk limb, since he’s already risked life, and try to Apparate. He’s never been sure if it would work, Apparating with a wand but without magic, but he closes his eyes, thinks, and spins, the sound of George calling his name ringing through the air.

When he opens his eyes, he’s in Hogsmeade, standing in the snow just outside the train station. He pulls his scarf around his neck a bit tighter, buttons up his coat halfway, and begins walking into the village. It takes him less than a minute to realize that it’s a Hogwarts weekend. He vaguely recognizes some of these Slytherin students, though they all look much older now, and the idea that any of them could recognize him...He considers Apparating somewhere else, but trying again so soon seems like tempting fate far too much, so he flips up the collar of his coat and walks to the Hog’s Head, where buys a bottle of firewhiskey and he sits in a corner with a glass and - well.

George would call it brooding, if he were here. Draco thinks about him, and the pair of them, about what this means. He doesn’t want it to be over. The very thought makes him feel sick to his stomach, feel a tightness in his chest. But...if it were the other way round, everyone would expect Draco to sever ties with his father, and any hesitation to do so would be read as complicity in his father’s crimes. It’s like he told George once, isn’t it? Draco, his family, Blaise and Pansy and Tracey Davis and all - they know what they are, and everyone else knows it, too, and it’s people like the Weasleys, like Potter and Granger and Longbottom, who are believed to be irreproachable. Good people who do bad things are still good, is what he’s learned, since the war. Bad people who do good things are only ever bad.

The chair across the little rickety table from him squeaks across the floor as someone pulls it out. Draco doesn’t look up, expecting to see George if he does, unsure if he even wants to, just yet. But then the person who sits down puts a hand around the bottle of firewhiskey to examine it, and says, “It was smart to buy the bottle. I have it on good authority that 1976 was a very good year.” He jerks his head up to see Professor McGonagall conjuring a glass of her own. “Would you mind if I partook? It has been a particularly trying semester.” Draco blinks at her.

“By all means, be my guest, Professor,” he says, and then, absently, as she’s pouring, “My parents were married in 1976.” McGonagall hums and takes a long sip, breathes out a brief sigh of relief and clears her throat.

“Thank you, Malfoy,” she says. “Now, far be it from me to get into a student’s - or former student’s - private life and dilemmas, but the miserable way you’ve been looking into that glass for the past twenty minutes has motivated me to ask you a personal question: What is on your mind today, Malfoy?” Draco laughs, the two glasses of firewhiskey already in him making his mind feel looser, less mannerly.

“This makes sense,” he says. “Granger said Hogwarts employed a few counselors. I assume that they’ve given the teachers some training as well, then?”

“You were always very astute,” McGonagall says, nodding. “Brightest wizard of your age, if we’re being completely honest. And you’re friends with Granger now? _Merlin_.” Draco huffs out a laugh.

“George says the same thing,” he says. McGonagall hums again.

“So those rumors are true?” she asks. Draco sighs. 

“Do you really want to know what’s on my mind, Professor?” he says, and she confirms that she does, so he takes another sip from his own glass and tells her. He tells her about his magic, about wandmaking, about his beech tree. He tells her about Spinner’s End, about Calliope, about Meriweather. He tells her about George, about Bill and Fleur, about Andromeda. He tells her about his parents, about Blaise, about Pansy. He tells her about Luna, about Longbottom, about Granger. He tells her about the shop, about Theodore Nott, about St. Mungo’s. He tells her about Molly, about Percy, about Arthur. 

McGonagall listens all the while, and when he’s finished, puts down her now-empty glass and says, “I always did believe that you Slytherins care too much of what others think of you.” Draco stares blankly at her before openly glaring.

“Are you seriously saying that it doesn’t matter?” he snaps.

“No, Malfoy, I am simply saying that you need to sort out your priorities,” she says slowly. She gives him a thoughtful look. “You seem to have made considerable progress since the war ended. You’ve clearly experienced impressive personal and interpersonal growth. Is that something you’re proud of?” Draco’s brow furrows.

“Yes, of course, I am,” he says.

“Then forget about good and bad,” she says, her teacher voice coming through in a way that almost makes him smile. “You understand now how tenuous those boundaries are. It’s not just you, your family, and Snape who made homes in the gray areas, after all.” Something about her tone makes her words sound more significant, and when he raises his eyebrows at her, she adds, lowly, “Healers at St. Mungo’s were, on the third of May last year, alerted to what really happened to Montague. It is my understanding that he has since made considerable progress of his own.” Draco swallows, lets out a long exhale. 

“That’s good to know,” he says quietly.

“I only mean,” McGonagall continues, “that you should focus on yourself - a skill in which I know you excel - and the people you love, those who matter the most to you. What have you proven to them? What have you proven to yourself?”

Draco says nothing for awhile, simply thinking it over, sipping the firewhiskey slowly, swirling it in his glass. By the time he finishes his drink, he’s come to a decision, difficult though it is. He looks at McGonagall as he sets his glass on the dusty table and says, “Is that offer you made to me a few summers ago still good, Professor?” The corners of her stern mouth twitch up.

“You get your magic back, Malfoy, and if you still want to sit your N.E.W.T.s, you send me an owl,” she says. 

Draco takes a late afternoon train from Hogsmeade Station to King’s Cross and then the Knight Bus to Cokeworth. It’s well into the evening by the time he gets back to Spinner’s End. In an sight upsettingly similar to the night of their anniversary, George is sitting on the ground again, leaning against the front door with his knees drawn up toward his chest, looking terribly despondent. He looks up at the sound of Draco’s approaching footsteps and his face dawns with hope as he gets to his feet. He begins to babble a bit, about the door not opening for him again, about how long he’s sat there, about the walk he took around Cokeworth at dusk, about catching Blaise leaving Calliope’s house and Blaise’s single raised eyebrow of staunch warning. Draco remains silent as he unlocks the door and lets them inside, but the hopeful expression doesn’t wane from George’s face.

He’s talking out of pure nerves, Draco recognizes, as George walks around the room waving his wand, bringing light to the lamps throughout the living room. Draco stares at George’s back as he works, the muscles in his shoulders under his thin t-shirt now that his coat has been discarded, and realizes very suddenly that George has no idea of the journey that Draco’s taken today. George has no idea what Draco wants to say to him, or what Draco wants him to say, or if Draco wants him there, or if Draco ever wants to see him again at all. But George showed up anyway, spent an afternoon alone in this sad little town just on the desperate optimism that Draco would be back eventually and would be glad to see him, after everything. It’s a bold move, one that requires a sad sort of courage, and Draco doesn’t think he’s ever properly appreciated the fact that George is a Gryffindor, full-stop, but he does now, is unbelievably grateful for his daring.

George stops speaking rather abruptly, once all the lamps are lit, as he walks closer to Draco, close enough for Draco to reach out and touch. George bites his thumbnail for a moment. “Please say something, Draco,” he finally begs. Draco takes a deep breath and a few steps away from him.

“Stay there, please, while I speak,” he says quietly. “I need to say this with space between us because you might want to leave afterward, and if you do, then I have to let you, and that will be easier if you’re not within reach.” George looks a bit frightened, but he nods, remains where he stands. Draco takes another deep breath.

“George, I need you to understand this about me: I’m not a good person. I’m rude more often than not, I’m very judgmental, I cling to grudges like one normally only does to old friends….” he says, ticking down the list on his fingers. “I have, admittedly, gotten better at those things, because of therapy and because of you, but I’m always going to be like that. I’m not nice and I’m not gracious, and I’ve learned to hide it better now but I’m still really greedy. I’m not ashamed of my Dark Mark. I’m not ashamed of why I was in the fight, for my family and myself, for our security. I thought that I believed in the cause at the time, too, of course, and now that I’m not, I feel somewhat entitled to recognition for that growth. I want people to ignore my hypocrisy simply because I don’t want to deal with it.” He shakes his head and sighs, throws his hands up.

“And I _like_ those things about me, if I’m honest. I know who and what I am. I always have. I’m _never_ going to be capital-letter Good, George, and I don’t even think I’m a regular good person either, and that was never a problem when it was just you and me, you know,” Draco continues. “You know who I am as well. You said that you don’t need me to be anything else, and I believe you, but since our families found out about us, I’ve been trying. I know how much they mean to you, because I know how much my parents mean to me, and I just thought that it would be easier for you, for us, if I could be a good person, if they could see me that way. But the truth is that I’m just...not.” Draco rubs at the back of his neck, wishing that he could read George’s expression. He bites his lip and looks down at his feet.

“I’m a Slytherin and I’m a Malfoy,” he says, “and we’re all slippery and untrustworthy, the lot of us. Barely an ounce of integrity to be found, frankly, and terribly inclined toward Darkness, besides, and I’m alright with that. More than, even. You said once that you were, too, and that’s all I need to know, when it comes down to it, that’s the only part that matters to me. But, George, my family risked too much in the war. I thought that it would break us entirely, which, well, I suppose it did, in a few ways, but the point is...I can’t keep shrugging off their sacrifices to keep me safe, to get us all through the war alive and out of prison.” 

He rolls his shoulders back, feeling the tension settle in them with an uncomfortable ache. If George stays tonight, then Draco will have to ask him to massage it out of him. _If._ He closes his eyes against it. This is the painful part. 

“Your father is dangerous for me,” he says. “I didn’t know until today, not really. I didn’t realize how much so. And I’m sorry to prove him right, and to ask you to choose, but for me, this is what the reality of it is: I am in love with you, and I would really, truly prefer to stay with you, because you’re the first thing that ever made me feel safe since my father was arrested at the end of fifth year, but I cannot be around your father anymore. I can’t put my parents through that - I _won’t_.” He opens his eyes, finds that he’s still staring at the floor. “So I guess...that’s it, then,” he finishes weakly. He feels lighter now, though, if a bit out of breath, and when he gathers enough courage to look up, it’s to see a small smile slowly forming on George’s face. Hope begins to dawn within Draco’s heart.

“I kind of wish I’d gone first now,” George says. “See, I already had a huge fight with my dad, after you left the hospital. I made it quite clear that I won’t be seeing him again until he gets his head out of his ass and--well, apologizes to you sincerely, first of all, and also gives you a chance, a real one. Knowing my dad, that will take a lot of time, so….” He shrugs, a bit brittle, but then he says, with a sweet, lovely sort of smile, “You’re in love with me, eh?” Draco cringes.

“Haven’t I said that before?” he asks, coughing. 

“You haven’t.”

“Well, shit. Yes, I am. I love you.” A grin plays on his lips. “Nasty blood traitor though you are,” he adds, but there’s no bite to it, and George smirks.

“Mind if I close this distance between us, then?”

\---

Draco wakes the next morning, at 7 as always. He showers, lets the warm water fall heavy on his neck and shoulders, down his spine, reveling in the pleasant soreness elsewhere in his body. He puts on clean jeans and picks up George’s sweater from the floor, throws it on as he walks down the stairs. The bagginess of it exposes his collarbones and left shoulder to the chill of the ground floor before he lights a small fire in the fireplace - he’s a damn near expert at starting fires the Muggle way now, so it only takes him two matches instead of the two dozen from his first winter in this house - and goes into the kitchen to start cooking breakfast. He’s thinking scrambled eggs this morning, instead of poached or fried, and extra bacon for George, along with the rest of the usual.

Someone begins pounding on the front door just as he finishes whisking the eggs. He jumps at first, then plunges deeply and immediately into supreme irritation. After heaving a great sigh and giving the bacon a little flip in the pan, he marches to the door and throws it open in disgust to see--

Weasley. Standing there dumbly, his fist raised to continue the rude knocking, with Granger and Potter behind him. Draco opens his mouth to shout his fury at them for being here, for mistreating his front door like that, for interrupting his cooking, and just to scream at him for breaking up the family or whatever, he’s sure, but before he can say anything, Weasley glances down at Draco’s chest, back up at his face, and says, “So George _is_ here, then.” 

Draco furrows his brow, looks down at himself and sees the large _G_ adorning his sweater. He scowls at Weasley and slams the door shut again, makes a great loud show of locking it from the inside. He goes back to cooking and Weasley starts banging on the door again, yelling this time for him to open the door. Draco is fully prepared to let the sod keep carrying on, but then it stops. A few moments later, he hears knocking again, actually reasonable in quantity and volume, and Granger’s voice saying, “Malfoy? We’re not here to shout at you. We just want to speak to you and George. Please let us in.”

Draco takes a deep breath. It’s not as if he wants any of them in his house, and he considers just ignoring them all until they leave, but then he thinks of how spluttering angry it will make Weasley if he opens the door on Granger’s wishes, so that’s what he does. He smiles at her, says, “Good morning, Granger. Please do come in,” and is rewarded with the rage splotches on Weasley’s face as he and Potter follow Granger inside. 

“I’m cooking breakfast,” he says pleasantly. “Would you like some?”

“Oh,” Potter says. “We didn’t eat anything, actually, so, er, yeah.”

“That’s too bad, then,” Draco says, turning to go back into the kitchen, smiling to himself as he does. Granger honestly deserves less stupid friends. “If you must sit, then you can do so on the sofa,” he calls to them. “It doesn’t bite strangers.” He hears some grumbling.

“You and my brother haven’t, like, _done_ anything on this couch, have you?” Weasley says. Draco rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer. He hears more grumbling, but Weasley has been convinced to sit down by the time Draco emerges from the kitchen carrying two full plates. 

“Do you usually cook breakfast for the two of you?” Granger asks curiously, watching Draco set the plates down on a small table.

“Every morning,” Draco says, disappearing again to retrieve forks and knives, and then once more to bring out two cups of tea, still brewing. He can hear George upstairs rummaging around now, and he goes to stand near the staircase and calls up to him, “You might want to get dressed before you come down, as we have uninvited guests.” 

“What?” comes George’s muffled voice. “Who the hell’s here this early?” Draco gives the trio sitting on his sofa a cold look.

“Who the hell’s here this early, indeed,” he says to them, and then, louder so that George can hear, “The two worst people in the world and Granger.”

“Oh!” George says. Draco rolls his eyes and goes to sit at the table, tends to the tea until a minute later when George appears downstairs, fully dressed, though his hair is still a mess, and smiling tentatively at his brother, Granger, and Potter. He brightens when his sleepy eyes land on Draco, tossing tea bags into the bin, and Draco’s surprised when George puts his arms around him and holds him close, kisses him on the cheek. He blushes and ducks his head, embarrassed at affection where others can see, but he can’t hide his smile. 

“Breakfast awaits,” he says. George hums happily and goes to sit at the table, looks at their guests on the sofa.

“Did he offer you lot any?” 

“He did,” Granger says dryly, rolling her eyes. George snickers.

“To be fair,” he says carefully, “we don’t know why you’re here. So I can’t really blame him.”

“Oh, right,” says Potter. “Well….” He and Granger both look at Weasley, who looks away for a few moments before sighing.

“We’re here because...because we want to let you know that we… _ugh_.” Weasley throws his head back with a groan. Draco laughs at him. 

“Eloquent as always, Weasley,” he says. Weasley lifts his head and scowls at Draco.

“We’re here because we want to let you know that we _support you_ ,” he blurts out in a rush, punctuating it with an expression that makes it seem as though the very words tasted cruelly dreadful on his tongue. It’s quiet for a second, everyone in the place looking at George for his reaction, and then--

“What, really?” George asks, a bite of sausage poised halfway to his mouth. “I mean… _really_?”

“I see eloquence runs in the family,” Draco mutters, and receives a light kick and a twitchy smile from George before he turns back to his little brother.

“It’s just that...we see how happy you are, George,” Granger says quietly, anxious. “And, given the, ah, actions of your dad, we understand why you need to distance yourself from him. We agree, really.” She bites her lip. “We just wanted you to know that...we’re with you.” She elbows Weasley, who jumps and grimaces, steels himself quite obviously. 

“Even _I_ know this relationship is good for you,” he says, clearing his throat. “Look, mate, I remember what you were like, that first year after...after Fred. I didn’t see you smile even once. Do you have any idea how scary that was? I worried about you all the time, but I didn’t know what to do - you didn’t seem to want to be around any of us, so I just...I kept my distance and hoped you were alright.” He shrugs. “And then one day, you...almost were, and we didn’t know why, but then you started bringing Malfoy round, and even when we all thought you were just friends, it was clear that he made you happy. I want you to be happy, George. Even if it is with _him_.”

“Hell, even Malfoy seems like slightly less of a dick these days,” Potter mutters.

“Oh!” Draco says, suddenly remembering something. The other four look at him, startled, and he shakes his head at George, holds up his index finger as he takes another quick sip of tea before running upstairs to the guest room. He returns with a box to a confused room and shoves it at Potter. “This is all stuff about your mother.” Potter looks into the box and back up at him, his mouth agape. 

“Why do you have this?” he asks.

“Snape had it,” Draco says. He feels rather awkward now. Perhaps this wasn’t the right time to give this to Potter. 

“That still doesn’t answer--”

“This was Snape’s house,” Draco says, gesturing widely to the room. “He left me everything when he died, including enough ephemera about Lily Evans to fill that box.” Potter blinks at the box again.

“Why did it take so long for you to give me this?”

“Well, I wasn’t about to go toting it across the country, was I?” Draco says, annoyed. “You’re lucky I kept it, to be honest. I thought about tossing it every time I looked at it, but I figured that you should have a look at it, at least. Merlin! Can’t you just be grateful?” He rolls his eyes and walks back to the table, sits down to finish his breakfast. 

“Thank you,” Potter says, his voice small, as Draco takes a bite of tomato, cleaning his plate. He glances begrudgingly over at the sofa, sees only the messy dark mass of Potter’s hair as Potter buries his face in the box, no doubt looking first for photos of his mother as a young girl, hungry for family the way even Draco knows that he’s always been. 

“You’re welcome,” Draco says. George looks back and forth between Draco and Potter with wide eyes. Draco sighs. “I’m not cooking for you lot, but...tea?”

\---

Molly comes to the house several hours later, long after Weasley and Potter and Granger have left, bringing food to cook for lunch, almost as if she could hear them debating for ten minutes about what to eat. She disappears into the kitchen and begins cooking. Draco hovers in the doorway, feeling a bit guilty.

“You really don’t have to cook here, Molly,” he says. “You do so much already. I can--”

“Nonsense, Draco, dear,” she says. When she looks at him, Draco can tell that she’s spent many hours of the last day in tears. He bites his lip, offers to help, at least, and she busies him and George both with peeling and chopping potatoes for the soup. 

When the three of them sit down at the table - George conjures a third chair - Molly still hasn’t said anything about why she’s here. George is on edge over it, Draco can tell, and he’s feeling nervous himself, preparing to have to resist a persuasive, maternally manipulative speech from her as they eat, but instead, she passes Draco the bread and says in a choked voice, “You two know...you know that I love you, don’t you?” Draco looks at her in surprise, but George puts his hand on his mother’s arm.

“Of course, we know, Mum,” he says. “And you...you know why I can’t see Dad--”

“Oh, yes, I understand, George,” she says, tears forming in her eyes. “I wish things were different--I wish--” She dabs her napkin at her eyes and takes a deep breath, then looks at Draco, holds his gaze and draws herself up. “Arthur’s let an old, deep prejudice get in the way of remembering that you were just a _child_. You were only a child, just like Ron and Ginny, and just--just like Fred. I lost Percy for too many years over stubborn stupidity, and I’ve lost Fred forever, and I won’t lose another child, not for anything, and especially not when his only sin is falling for a young man who happens to be a Malfoy.” She puts a firm hand on Draco’s shoulder.

“I’ve seen the difference you’ve made in George’s life,” she says. “Once we found out the timeline, it all began to make sense. I didn’t know you before, of course, but I reckon George has made you happy as well.” She smiles when Draco nods. “I believe your father said it best, to be honest: I can’t ask for more for my son.”

Over the next week, Spinner’s End sees more visitors than it undoubtedly ever has, even long before it was Draco’s. 

Fleur stops by very briefly on Monday evening, in that short span of time between Draco coming home from work and going out for a run with Calliope, looks Draco in the eyes and places her hand over his as she says, “ _I know_ how very hard it is to break into this family. Do not allow Arthur to chase you away from George. You both deserve to be happy, and also, I fear I will lose my sanity if you disappear from the Weasleys’ lives entirely. _S'il vous plaît_ , don’t go.” 

Bill is there when he returns from his run, sitting in the living room with George. “Since you won’t be at dinners at the Burrow anymore, I thought I’d extend an invitation to a weekly dinner at Shell Cottage,” he says. “Usually it’s just me and Fleur and the baby, but sometimes Charlie comes round, too, and Fleur’s family. We’d love for you two to be there.”

Percy shows up on Wednesday while George and Draco eat dinner. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he says, looking mildly anxious. “I only wanted to make sure you know that I’m not on Dad’s side with this one, George. He’s bang out of order. Any rational person can see that you and Malfoy are good for one another.”

Ginny appears next to Draco in the middle of his Thursday run, jogging easily alongside him and grinning at him when he looks at her in startled shock. She follows him into the house and gives George a hug, says, “Look, you _know_ Malfoy isn’t my favorite person or anything,” and pauses to direct a lengthy glare at Draco, who smirks and winks at her, which only makes her sigh and roll her eyes. “Anyway, the point is, you’re my brother, and I love you, and I want you to be happy, even if it’s with a smarmy prat like him.”

It’s strange, having so many Weasleys behind him, or, at least, behind his relationship with George. He remembers his first visit to the Burrow, how nervous he was, how he felt so lucky that Molly defended him against her husband even then, how it was really only by chance that he brought the wine that made Fleur like him, which made Bill like him. It all could have gone so horribly, but the universe was on his side that day, for some reason, almost as if it believed that he deserved it. And to think, all he’d wanted was permission to stay at the shop overnight, all by himself.

He says as much to Meriweather, who gives him a thoughtful look and a slow smile. 

“All of this happened because you lost your magic, you know,” she says. Draco lets out a small, quiet burst of laughter at the realization.

“God,” he says. “Do you know what? I think it might have been worth it.”

\---

Around 11 on the morning of Christmas Eve, Molly knocks on the door of Spinner’s End, bringing food to make a miniature, lunchtime version of the Weasleys’ usual Christmas Eve dinner feast. She asks Draco about the Malfoy family’s holiday traditions, and as he helps her with the cooking, he tells her about church - it will be a Coptic Orthodox church tonight - and opening one small gift per recipient the night before Christmas, and the incredible food for Christmas dinner. Molly says, “That night at your Mum and Dad’s house was the first time I’ve ever eaten duck, you know,” and Draco says, “I can cook it for dinner here sometime, Molly, if you want to come over, take an evening off.” She laughs at the idea of getting to take a night off of cooking, which makes Draco sad, but lunch is all ready by then and he doesn’t have a chance to push the topic, much less decide if he really even wants to.

George runs upstairs after the meal, having realized that he still needs to wrap his gifts like Draco has been reminding him for over a week now, leaving Draco alone with Molly. “Speaking of gifts,” she says, and goes to her bag, where she pulls out a soft present, loosely wrapped and topped with a red bow, and hands it to Draco. Looking at it, holding it, he knows it can only be one thing, but he can’t quite believe it until he tears the wrapping away and sees it, holds it up in front of him. 

It’s a Weasley sweater. Gray and green. In the center, a large, pale blue _D_ , lined thinly with black. 

Draco stares down at it for so long, taking note of the stitching, the softness, the warmth of it, that Molly begins to babble, just as George does when he’s nervous. “I didn’t know your exact measurements,” she’s saying, when Draco finally realizes that she’s speaking. “I based it on Harry’s - you two are about the same size, but I did account for all your additional height. And I hope you like the color scheme - I wasn’t sure what to go on besides your Hogwarts house, but if you’d prefer something else, let me know and I’ll see what I can do next Christmas. And it’s alright if you don’t like it, of course, you’re not obligated to wear it, I just thought--” 

But Draco tugs it on over his head and pulls Molly into a hug. 

“I love it, Molly, thank you,” he mumbles into her hair. She’s a good enough woman to pretend that she doesn’t hear his voice shake.

\---

Draco and George ring in the new year with...well, friends, in one way or another. They wander through the slushy streets of Cokeworth with Blaise and Calliope, Pansy and Luna and Longbottom, Potter and Ginny, and Weasley and Granger. A rather disparate group, to be sure, but no one gets drunk enough to start a real row or to draw their wands in front of Calliope, so Draco considers it a success for that alone. George sets off a few of his enchanted fireworks behind the mill and the eleven of them sit and watch the display, beautiful in its contrast to the dark gloominess of the neglected mill, and Calliope marvels at the fire-breathing dragon and the bright pink Catherine wheel.

“How are they still going?” she says, watching the dragon travel through the sky, circling the town. “What kind of fireworks are those, George? That’s like magic, that is.”

At midnight, Draco’s laughter at Blaise and Calliope’s enthusiastic kiss is interrupted by George and a kiss of their own.

At 12:01, it begins to snow. 

_This will be my year_ , Draco thinks, his head tilted toward the cold sky, closing his eyes to feel the snowflakes dance on his face. He looks next to him at George, whose eyes are still shut. _This will be our year._


	13. Chapter 13

It simply cannot be postponed any longer, going to see Auntie Shafiq, and George, at least, is beyond excited about finally meeting her. 

“Haven’t you missed her?” he asks Draco, the very moment they Apparate to Achmelvich Beach.

“I have,” Draco admits, spinning around slowly a few times, trying to orient himself properly. “It’s just that...Of all people, I never wanted her to be disappointed in me.”

“Surely she would’ve sent a Howler or something if she was really that disappointed,” George says. Draco lets out a bark of laughter.

“You don’t know Auntie Shafiq,” he says dryly. “Come along. It’s a short walk from here.” He sets off walking across the beach.

“This place is gorgeous,” George says, looking out at the shoreline where white sand gives way to bright cerulean waters, free of snow and ice as if protected from winter by magic, as he follows Draco away from it. Draco glances back to the ocean.

“I used to love it here,” he says, climbing a grassy hill. 

“But not anymore?” 

“Hmm,” Draco hums. “I don’t know. I think there’s something to be said for dull small mill towns.”

“That’s generous of you,” George says. “Did you hear that old woman in the house across from the laundrette died the other day? That’s, what, four dead in the past month?”

“It’s about time, too.”

“Jesus, Draco,” George mutters.

“What? They’ve been lonely and ornery and mean since long before I moved in. You, Calliope, and I will have all of Cokeworth to ourselves soon,” Draco says. “Well, Blaise, too, I suppose, if he continues playing his cards right.”

“Ah, yes, it’s always been my dream to live in a town full of a hundred empty houses and a grand total of three other people,” George says dryly. 

“You scorn, of course, but that really has been more or less _my_ lifelong dream,” Draco says thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if you’ve gleaned this or not, but my primary goal throughout my life has basically been to be whatever I need to be for people to leave me alone - while admiring me from afar, obviously.”

“Oh, I’ve gleaned,” George says, “and Lucius _and_ Andromeda both say you get that from your mum.” They come upon a small gate, which Draco pushes open.

“To An Fharaid Bheag,” he says cheerfully. George steals a kiss as he walks through the gate, and gives Draco a playful smack on his ass. Draco squawks in mock outrage.

“You really are a _bloody_ menace, do you know that?” he says. George laughs and takes Draco’s hand in his, pulls his scarf tighter against the wind as they continue their journey westward. After about a quarter mile, they finally see it: a tiny castle nestled over a little inlet.

“What on earth….” George says, but Draco’s grinning, tugging George’s hand as he walks further along.

“Just wait until you see it up close.”

Up close, its oddities are amplified by its miniature size, so small it could be a toy built for a child to sit inside it and pretend to be a queen. Boxy and angular, the concrete structure looks wind beaten and weathered by sand. Several tiny square windows line the top of the walls near the roof, all missing their glass, rendering them virtually useless as windows at all. The whole building is barely taller than Draco, and he and George could easily climb on top of it and stand on the roof with little to no effort, if they wanted. It can’t possibly contain more than one miniscule room. 

“I think I see what you mean about ‘mad old house,’” George says. 

“This is nothing,” Draco says. 

They have to jump down toward the inlet in order to reach the seaward-facing entrance - whose door is missing as well, leaving only a narrow vertical slit in its place - and the moment that the soles of their shoes hit the rocks, an invisible force binds their feet where they stand. A booming, nondescript voice clamors up from the ground. 

“ _Be you stranger, friend, or foe?_ ”

Draco rolls his eyes. “Why would one identity oneself as ‘foe’?” he mouths in George’s direction. Aloud, he says, “Friend once. Stranger now, perhaps. And guest.” George gives him a curious look, so he rolls his eyes again and mutters, “It’s all dramatic riddle-speak with this woman.”

“ _Very curious, indeed. State your name._ ”

“Draco Malfoy, only son of Narcissa Black, youngest surviving member of the noble and most ancient house of Black,” Draco says. Then, glancing at George, “And George Weasley, once fifth of seven, now fourth of six, of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.” George makes a soft gagging sound at that.

“ _Very well, son of Narcissa. And whose will brought you here?_ ”

Draco bites his lip for a moment, thinks. “Mine and mine alone,” he says. The ground shudders beneath him and pushes him and George up to the next rock, closer to the house, freeing their feet to continue.

“ _Proceed._ ” 

“That was _wicked_ ,” George whispers loudly, eager once more. He hesitates at the entrance, though. “We just barge in?”

“She knows we’re here,” Draco says with a shrug. “Here, I’ll go in first.” He takes a deep breath, steeling himself to face Auntie Shafiq after all this time, and walks inside. Instantly, the cold concrete disappears as a warm, spacious castle interior materializes before his eyes. He breathes it in - the roaring fire, the clean dark stone under his feet, the walls lined with Bengali folk art and Celtic symbols, the smell of mutton biryani - and can’t help but smile.

“Merlin’s beard,” George whispers from behind him. Draco turns to grin at him and jumps when he hears a woman’s dry voice resounding throughout the room.

“ _So!_ ” Auntie Shafiq shouts. Draco whips around to see her standing in the doorway, bright yellow scarf tied loosely around her head as she leans on a walking stick, looking severely less than amused. “Two marked Death Eaters, all three in the Dark Lord’s inner circle, headquarters stationed in the truly illustrious Malfoy Manor, plus one attempted assassination of the Hogwarts Headmaster which led to the Cursing and poisoning of two innocent students and a pub owner - and not one second of jail time for any of you?”

Draco grimaces, swallows, fixes his mouth into a cutting smile, and says, “What can I say? We Malfoys always land on our feet.” Shafiq screams out a laugh, rapping the walking stick on the floor several times.

“ _Feet?!_ ” she exclaims. “If you Malfoys were any more slippery, you’d have to change the snakes in your family crest to eels!” Draco clears his throat.

“It’s funny you should say that, actually--”

“And who is this?” Auntie Shafiq demands, gesturing to George, who smiles awkwardly at her.

“Hello,” he says. She looks him up and down with narrowed eyes.

“Ginger hair and freckles like that, but an expensive coat and boots?” she says, her eyebrows raised. She turns to Draco. “Can’t _really_ be a Weasley, can he?”

“George Weasley,” Draco says. “He started his own business, Auntie. He makes quite a large bit of money.” Auntie Shafiq hums.

“So the rumors are true about you two, then,” she says. “Kept hearing about it even all the way out here, you know. Couldn’t believe it. Thought for sure my mind was going.” She gives George an evaluative look again, her lip curling. George’s eyes have gone wide, his constant anxious cringe evident. Auntie Shafiq turns to Draco again. “Is he good for you?”

“Very much, yes,” Draco answers immediately. “More than I deserve, probably.” She nods slowly before turning back to George, shuffling forward to extend a hand to him.

“Anyone good for Draco is good with me,” she says.

“Funny. I use the same criteria, pretty much,” George says, shaking her hand happily, “and now I’m friends with Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, so take that as you will, I suppose.” Auntie Shafiq throws back her head to laugh.

“Auntie, I came here to ask--” Draco starts.

“I’ve got your books,” she interrupts, waving her wand toward the corridor. A heavy box full of thick books comes careening into the room along the floor, like a bounding dog, stopping at Draco’s feet. He stares down at it.

“My books?”

“They belonged to Severus, so now they belong to you,” she says. 

“Oh,” says Draco, pursing his lips and frowning. He kneels down to scan through the titles.

“Most of them are to do with Healing. He sent them to me after your career counseling meeting, asked me for any of my more ‘ _unconventional_ recommendations.’ Always was such a condescending git, that man, but it’s a shame the war took your godfather from you. He said you wanted to be a Healer,” she says.

“Yeah, I did,” Draco says. “Things change, though, and so have my plans.” He stands up. “Auntie, I need--”

“Come help me reach this big one on the top shelf,” she says. Draco sighs, looks at George and rolls his eyes. George grins at him.

“Can you not just use a charm--”

“You’re so much taller than you were,” Auntie Shafiq says with a sparkle in her eye, pointing her walking stick at the top shelf. Draco narrows his eyes at her, but walks over to the shelf anyway. “I’m sure you’ve learned by now, George, how effective flattery is in getting a Malfoy to do your bidding.”

“Oh, yeah. Learned that one early,” George says, his grin audible in his voice. Draco pulls down the book and gives him a dry look as he turns to hand it to Auntie Shafiq, but he’s thrown out of his routine surliness when she grabs him by his wrists, her walking stick clattering to the floor, the book hitting the stone with a loud and dusty thud. Draco looks at her with wide eyes. He tries to tug his hands out of her grip but can’t seem to move his arms at all. Auntie Shafiq is staring blankly in the direction of his chest, her eyes simultaneously distant and searching, as if hunting a mile from prey. Her fingernails, perfectly lacquered in black, dig into the tender underside of his wrists and his palms.

“You lost your magic,” she says, quiet and haunted. Draco exhales, finally jerks his hands away from her. She looks up into his eyes, and he can really see, now, standing this close to her, every tired, concerned line of her face, her brown skin marked with all the fret and worry she was always trying to expel with meditation and fasting and yoga and reciting ninety-nine names as she passed a string of thirty-three amber beads through her fingers over and over. He wondered occasionally, bitterly, during the war, how she was doing in her little hermit castle on a northwestern Scottish beach, if she was feeling as above it all as she acted since he’d known her, if she ever stopped to think of him and his mother and his father or if she finally wrote them all off as lost and went on her way. Seeing her now, though, he knows how wrong he was then. He can map her anxieties in the fine lines around her mouth, in the clay residue on her forehead, in the depth of her impossibly dark eyes.

“I’m getting it back,” he says softly. “That’s partly why I’m here. I’m making a wand, you see, I have to earn my magic back, and...I need a core.” She holds his gaze for a torturously long moment.

“It’d be the first thing you’ve truly earned in your whole life, you know,” she says. Draco twitches a rueful smile at her.

“And I’m not planning on it being the last,” he says. “George would never let me.” Auntie Shafiq glances at George, who’s been watching the display with intense uncertainty.

“That true?” she asks gruffly. George blinks at her in some surprise before regaining his composure.

“Definitely. He still works in my shop. No preferential treatment while on the premises,” he assures her. She purses her lips and hums. Then, she smiles fully at him. 

“Good to know this little dragon wasn’t lying when he said you were good for him.”

“ _Little dragon?_ ” George asks with a devouring grin, a delighted fire lighting suddenly in his blue eyes. Draco groans.

“Oh, no, come on, Auntie,” he says miserably. “You can’t go giving away all--”

“Don’t you come to my house and tell me what I can and can’t do!” Auntie Shafiq says, her eyebrows raised. Draco sighs. “Now, you and George sit at my table, and you eat biryani and drink coffee, and you tell me how my little gold piece has been faring, along with her husband, I suppose, if you absolutely must speak of your father, and _then_ we will get to this subject of wand cores.” She turns on her heels, her walking stick returning to its rightful place with a snap of her fingers, and walks purposefully out of the room. Draco looks at George.

“We don’t really have a choice here,” he says. “Her mutton biryani is to die for, though.”

“No complaints from me, my little dragon,” George says as he and Draco begin following Auntie Shafiq. Draco groans so loudly that it echoes down the corridor.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Auntie Shafiq calls. George practically _skips_ to the dining room.

After a very long lunch in which Draco consumes a dangerous amount of caffeine, and George eats more rice than he’s probably ever even seen in his life, and secrets of all sorts - innocent and joyous, iniquitous and traumatic - are laid bare among the candles and the goblets of mango lassi, Draco points to a high shelf in the drawing room where sit a dozen or so animal skeletons encased on display in large glass bottles. George startles at the sight, but Auntie Shafiq simply chuckles and asks, “Which one’ll you have, then?”

Draco gives her a sheepish smile and glances at the bottle fourth from the left. She follows his gaze and unleashes a hearty cackle before whipping her wand through the air, sending the bottle floating down to Draco’s hands.

“What is it?” George asks.

“An eel from the Bay of Bengal,” Draco says.

“An eel,” George repeats, laughter in his voice. “ _Really_ , Draco?”

“Slippery _and_ soft,” Draco says with a wry smile. 

“Certainly fitting,” Auntie Shafiq says. “I’m glad I could help. Don’t you waste it now.” She loads them down with leftovers and a huge bowl full of pantua and all those books in a heavy chest, and Draco promises, promises, _promises_ to come back to see her when he finishes his wand and his magic returns, and to not let her ever go so along again between visits from him, and then he and George Disapparate from a mere footstep outside her home, where the warm castle inside has shifted once more into a peculiar concrete imitation of a child’s toy.

At dinnertime, they knock on Calliope’s door and share the food with her and Blaise, who argues rather heatedly with George over who gets to eat the last pantua until Calliope simply picks it up between her fingers and pops it into her mouth. Draco laughs so hard at Blaise and George’s expressions that he has to leave the room to catch his breath. Back at home, Draco sets the bottle, skeleton safely inside, on the table by the sofa, next to the branch that’s now been whittled and carved into an almost-wand, awaiting its final component, the final step. George stands beside him and stares at the table, slipping his arm around Draco’s shoulders, combing his fingers through Draco’s hair.

“Know when you’re gonna do it yet?” he asks.

“Thursday,” Draco says quietly. “I was born on a Thursday. Just seems right.”

“Hmm,” says George. “‘Thursday’s wizard has far to go.’” Draco glances at him.

“What?”

“Isn’t that how that poem goes?” George asks. “‘Monday’s witch is fair of face. Tuesday’s wizard, full of grace. Wednesday’s witch--’”

“‘--is full of woe. Thursday’s wizard has far to go,’” Draco picks up, the memory returning to him. A little laugh escapes him. “Huh.”

“Think you’ve gone pretty far by now,” George says in a low voice, pressing his face to Draco’s ear. “Come to bed, then?” Draco snorts.

“You’re getting worse at this seduction act every night,” he says.

“And yet,” George says with a wink, “you always fall for it.”

\---

The following Thursday, Draco wakes up at 7, showers, gets dressed, cooks breakfast, kisses George goodbye before George climbs into the fireplace to go to the shop for the day, and goes to the back garden with his journal, his almost-wand, the eel skeleton, and a knife.

George asked him, a few times, if Draco wanted him to be there for the final step. Draco thought about it, every time, and said no. “It feels like this is something I need to do on my own,” he said.

 _Feels_ is much the operative word in this final step, much to his chagrin. His mind has gotten him this far, along with his heart, an introspective rationality that came to the conclusions regarding the wood and the core, and the plain intuition that guided him to cutting and carving until a charmingly rudimentary snake design appeared at the base to make it easier to grip. The rest of this, though, is gut instinct. Every instruction he’s ever found on the final step has been vague at best, the authors seeming somewhat frightened of the process. 

Blood magic is, admittedly, ancient and mysterious, and otherwise associated with the most vile and gruesome spells and potions - binding a person’s life to one’s own without their consent or desire, for example, which nearly always leads to a violent end for both involved; or transfiguring someone’s heart into glass inside their chests, a personal favorite of Blaise’s mother (“You can’t prove that,” comes Blaise’s bored voice in Draco’s mind); or what Draco’s father witnessed the Dark Lord doing to Potter in a graveyard over five years ago. But blood magic can be beautiful, too. It’s what saved Potter, after all, and what ultimately condemned the Dark Lord to die. It’s what’s rescued lovers throughout history from disapproving families. It’s what crafts a wand.

Draco sits cross-legged on the goosegrass, his journal at his side, and all the rest in front of him, waiting. He purses his lips and glances at the journal. He’s memorized every line of his notes on this by now. Reading it again won’t help. He focuses instead on the delicate skeleton and the carved wood...and the knife. 

“Right,” he whispers to himself. “Intentions.” He closes his eyes, afraid to watch in case it doesn’t work, and places his hand over the wood, hovering his palm along it, warming it. He touches it with his fingertip then, drags it down the length slowly, carefully, while thinking very, very hard. _Trust me. Please. Please. Trust me._

He hears a slight crack and opens his eyes to see the wood split open horizontally, the inside pulsing a glow, like a heartbeat. Draco takes a moment to marvel at that, to wonder if that’s what happens when a wand chooses a wizard: their pulses sync to one another. He bites his lip and glances at the journal again before decided to take a quick chance and write down that question - he doesn’t want to forget it later, wants to chase it and find where it takes him, but he knows it will be obliterated from his mind as soon as this works, if it does work. 

Casting his notebook aside again, he very gingerly picks up the eel skeleton and rests it in the valley created in the wood. It’s too big, obviously, not like a unicorn hair, but if he does this correctly, if it works the way it should, then it won’t matter that the eel bones are slightly longer and just a tiny bit taller than the wood. He picks the knife up from the grass and holds the sharp point of it over the tip of his middle finger, poised directly over the open wood. He bites his lip and takes a second to run through the instructions again in his mind, as vague as they are. 

This was the part that was so puzzling to him at first until he realized what it meant. There are no words to say to make this happen. No Latin, no Old English, not even a basic rhyme to declare will and aims. Draco couldn’t understand for months why none of the books mentioned an incantation, not so much as a hint to go on to figure it out himself, until he finally unraveled it, and it knocked him out so thoroughly that he let the bacon burn: _this_ is what blood magic was made for. The oldest form of magic, requiring no language, only intention and intuition and instinct - it _existed_ to bridge the hollow between magic-havers and magic-wielders, to bind them together, to make magic into more than just a fluke of nature. Somewhere within the mysteries and mysticism of blood magic and wandcraft is a creation myth, Draco knows, and one day, maybe, he’d like to root it out.

Now, though, he has to cut himself. 

He takes a deep breath, and then another, and then--pierces his skin with the knife, drags it barely a millimeter from its initial puncture, enough for several small drops of blood to bloom on the surface. He turns his hand over, squeezes painfully at his finger until a few deep red droplets fall onto the wood and the skeleton, blossoming there, and bringing an instant low humming sound to life. Draco watches the skeleton shrink and sink into the wood like a lost child running home, watches the wood shiver around it, the interior moving like the tiniest, most calming waves to meld it all together, bones and blood and beech. It slows to a stop when it’s sufficiently satisfied, evidently, and seals itself up again without fanfare, looking brand new, like it was never split open at all. 

Draco stares down at it, his heart pounding. He picks up the wand - it is a wand now, no ‘almost’ about it - and thinks he feels the little pulse inside of it matching his heart rate. His fingers warm, and then his hand, his wrist, his arm. He could swear that magic is being poured into his body again, like molten gold. He swallows. He can barely breathe. He points it at his journal.

“ _Engorgio_ ,” he whispers.

The journal immediately swells to the size of a small dog. 

Draco laughs in relief, in delight. “ _Reducio_ ,” he says, and watches the journal return to its original size. He lets it overwhelm him, allows himself to cry. He knows it won’t be the last time today, anyway. He may as well learn to let it happen now, at the start. 

He spends the entire day performing magic that he hasn’t been able to do since the Battle of Hogwarts, in awe of how much better this wand is working than his old one ever did. His magic is stronger now, even after almost three years of disuse. The handful of spells that used to give him trouble come easily to him now, and ones he only learned about since the war ended, ones he’s never performed before, come swiftly, like they’ve just been waiting for him to catch up to them. He Apparates from the garden to the bedroom to the park to Ottery Saint Catchpole to Wiltshire and back to the kitchen at Spinner’s End with no difficulty or fear. He stands in the garden, thinks fervently of this very moment, and exclaims, “ _Expecto patronum!_ ” and watches a great silvery hippogriff burst forth from his wand. He laughs so hard at it that he cries, and then sits down to truly cry and breathe through it, all of it, all of this, the constant pressing feeling of pure joy and relief.

When George comes home, Draco is in their bedroom, ready for George to enter. He opens the door hesitantly, clearly unsure of what he’s going to find, if the wandmaking was successful, if Draco has his magic back. But Draco is there, standing beside their bed, grinning and beckoning George forward. 

“Look what I can do now,” he says, and waves his wand purposefully at George, who’s grinning now that he can see the happiness on Draco’s face. The buttons of George’s shirt come undone one by one and his belt unbuckles. George looks down at himself and then back up at Draco, his grin turning sly.

“Where’d you learn that one?” he asks. Draco smirks.

“I’ve been practicing on myself.” His eyes trail up and down George’s body as he licks his lips. He waves his wand again and George’s clothes right themselves. “On second thought, I think I’ll keep doing that without magic, actually.”

George’s smirk falters for a moment. “So, you’re not....” he says awkwardly, nervous and uncertain, “I mean, things aren’t going to change with us, now you’ve got your magic back?” Draco looks at him with wide eyes, shakes his head as he crosses the room to George.

“Not a chance,” Draco says. He pulls George in by the shirt, fingers going directly for the top button resting against George’s collarbone, and kisses him.

\---

Draco, George, and Blaise sit down with Calliope on the cusp of February and tell her about magic, about the Wizarding World, and that they’re wizards. 

She stares at them like she’s scared for them at first, like they’re absolutely mad and she’s trying to figure out how to get them to a hospital. She says, “Prove it,” like she pities them, and then she falls off her chair when Blaise fills her glass with water with a tap of his wand. Draco levitates her back up and into her seat. George conjures a paper bag for her to breathe into. It takes her two minutes to calm down enough to interrogate them. 

Draco, personally, was hoping to avoid the more unsavory aspects of his own history as a wizard, but Blaise, in a rather uncharacteristic eagerness to reveal his secrets, barrels forward in telling Calliope about blood status politics and the war that took Snape’s life and Draco’s magic, and Draco ends up having to explain himself, feels properly ashamed looking at Calliope and telling her that he was once part of an army that was advocating for people like her to be subjugated and slaughtered. 

“Please understand, Calliope, I’m not that person anymore,” he says, imploring. “I haven’t been since before we met.” George reaches across the table and squeezes his hand.

“I understand,” she says kindly, nodding slowly. “You were a kid in an impossible situation. And obviously you’ve changed or else you wouldn’t be dating a--a blood traitor like George - is that the term? And you’ve never--I mean, I assume that home remedy you gave me for my cold that first December wasn’t just regular tea, right?”

“It was a potion,” Draco reluctantly admits.

“You gave her a _potion_?!” Blaise says, surprised.

“I wondered about that,” Calliope says. “It made steam come out of my ears, but I thought I was just hallucinating--”

“You gave her Pepper-Up Potion?!”

“She had a cold!” Draco exclaims. “And she was my neighbor and the first friend I ever made, like, on my own, right, and I didn’t know how else to help her, and she’s miserable when she’s sick, Blaise, you just wait, and I wanted her to get better.”

“Oh my god,” Blaise says, pinching the bridge of his nose, all pretense of control lost. 

“So, then, when you said your mother wouldn’t approve of me, it’s...because I’m a...Muggle?” Calliope asks. Blaise grimaces.

“Yes, exactly,” he says quietly. “It’s why I dragged my feet for so long with our relationship. She easily could’ve disowned me.”

“‘Could’ve’?” George says, shocked. “So you’ve told your mum about you and Calliope already? And she _didn’t_ disown you?” Blaise clears his throat.

“I may have taken some dramatic measures, none of which I feel comfortable sharing at this time,” he says coolly, “but yes, I did, and no, she didn’t.”

“Blackmail, then?” Calliope asks, and laughs when Blaise looks at her, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. She puts her hand over his and says, more comfortingly, “Hey, listen, I’m not angry you didn’t tell me at first, it makes sense, given what you’ve just said, and I’m glad you finally _did_ tell me, and, Blaise, come on. I _really_ fancy you, you know, and honestly this makes me feel better about my own family’s...misgivings. It’s not like they’re exactly wild about me dating a….” She gestures vaguely toward him.

“Italian?” Blaise suggests dryly, one eyebrow raised, and she giggles. Draco can tell it’s a conversation that Blaise and Calliope have had several times before.

“All I’m saying is, I’m good with it just being you and me, yeah?” she says. 

“Merlin,” George mutters, elbowing Draco. “Can you imagine if it came down to that for us? Are you gonna blackmail your dad for me, dear?”

“I’ll blackmail _your_ father,” Draco says. Blaise shoots him a glare. Draco nods and stands up, pulling George to his feet as well. “Come along, George. We are being summarily dismissed.”

“No one ruins a mood like the two of you, I _swear_ ,” Blaise mutters as they kiss Calliope’s hair on their way out of her house. Draco can hear Calliope laughing again as the door closes behind him.

\---

Draco goes to Ollivander’s shop to show him the wand. Ollivander examines it hungrily.

“Beech, eleven inches, reasonably pliable, just as your last wand was, and… _ah_! A very unique core,” he says, holding it up to his ear. “Is that...is that a skeleton?” 

“An eel skeleton, yeah,” Draco says.

“Fascinating,” says Ollivander, twirling the wand in his fingers before handing it back to Draco. “Go on, let’s see it, then.” Draco conjures a bouquet of white roses, transfigures a stool by the window into an elaborately-painted porcelain vase, and makes a dozen wands from a high shelf dance a perfect waltz. Ollivander applauds with delight.

“Congratulations, Mr. Malfoy!” he exclaims. “A masterfully crafted wand, as well. And what do you think you will do now that your magic has returned to you?”

“Well, actually, I’ve decided that I’d like to move forward with wandmaking as a career,” Draco says quietly. Ollivander looks at him for a moment, calculating as always, and smiles.

“Do you know,” he says, as if revealing a secret, “I think you will do quite well. From our meetings together, it seems that you are willing to, shall we say, branch out into more unusual components than I am. I wonder myself, from time to time, if such limitations aren’t a hindrance as well as a help.” He gazes at Draco with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve had a glance or two at the notes you’ve taken about the art - traditional Mexican cores, wands in Jamaica made from the wood of palm trees...I think your open mind is just what wandcraft needs in this age.” Draco raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Malfoy,” says Ollivander, nodding, “and I very much look forward to seeing what you can do.”

\---

Draco and George begin discussing a trip around the world so that Draco can gather wand wood and cores for his declared venture. 

“I think I’d like to bring Pansy and Blaise along,” Draco says. “We planned, ages ago, to go on a Grand Tour, like the wizards and witches of yore, you know. Obviously, it didn’t quite work out. Several things got in the way. It would be nice to make up for it.”

“Will Blaise be able to take that much time off of work?” George asks. “What does he even _do_ at the Department of Mysteries?”

“Whatever the hell it is that Unspeakables do,” Draco says. He’s wondered the exact same thing on perhaps a hundred occasions. “I _think_ , based on things he’s said in the past, that he’s been apprenticing exclusively as of late for someone in the Planet Room, although I suppose those could also have been hints regarding work in the Brain Room….” He shakes his head. “Regardless, it’s Department policy for jobseekers to take five to six months off immediately following the completion of their apprenticeship, so that they can fully process their experiences and be certain that it’s a career they want to pursue.”

“Hmm,” George says. “Makes sense. Unspeakables aren’t exactly known to switch careers ten years down the line. Guess it’s a rather no-rest-until-retirement type of job.”

Blaise and Pansy agree, quite excitedly, to join the trip. 

“I think, also, that it would be smart to invite Granger,” Draco says later. “She’d be useful to have along.” George snorts.

“Good luck getting _just_ Hermione to come.” Draco groans.

He does try, though. He brings it up the next time he sees Granger, at dinner at Shell Cottage, and she asks about two dozen questions regarding the purpose and logistics before biting at her thumbnail.

“Alright, yes, I’ll go,” she says decisively. “But only if Ron and Harry can come, too. And Ginny, if her Quidditch schedule permits.” Draco blanches.

“ _What?!_ Granger, absolutely not!” he exclaims, drawing attention from the other three in question.

“Well, then, I’m not going,” Granger says simply. Draco grits his teeth.

“What’s this all about?” Weasley asks.

“None of your business,” Draco snaps.

“Malfoy and George are going on a trip around the world so Malfoy can collect wand wood and cores,” Granger explains. “Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson are going along, and he’s just invited me as well, but I won’t go without you and Harry and Ginny.”

“But _why_?” Draco asks. “They’d all be useless on an excursion like this!”

“We’re right here,” Ginny says dryly.

“I know exactly where you are, Weaslette,” Draco snaps, not bothering to look at her.

“And who says we’d even want to go?” Potter says. “A long globe-trotting trip with Malfoy and his cronies doesn’t sound like my idea of a vacation.”

“One of those _cronies_ is George, you half-witted baboon,” Draco says. “And _you_ don’t have to worry about going or not, because _you’re not invited_.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about me going or not either,” Granger says. Draco glares at her.

“This is why you had only three real friends in school, Granger,” he says.

“How many real friends did you have, then?” she asks, rather nastily. Draco lets out a low, mean growl and stalks away. 

He complains dramatically about this turn of events to Blaise and Pansy at lunch a few days later, for so long that Blaise, having had ample time to think it through during this conversation, concedes, “The she-weasel might be useful to have along, actually. You know how terrifyingly capable she is with a hex. We might need extra defense at some point.”

“In which case it would also make sense for Weasley and Potter to be there as well,” Pansy says thoughtfully. “They’re ghastly people, _obviously_ , but according to Tracey Davis and Millie Bulstrode, they _are_ good Aurors.”

“I don’t believe this,” Draco says, gawking at them with wild eyes, feeling rather mad. “Fine, then! If we’re judging solely by usefulness, we may as well invite Longbottom and Luna, too, since we’ll be dealing directly with trees the whole way and undoubtedly encountering magical creatures of all sorts, right?” Blaise and Pansy stare at him with narrowed eyes and expressions bordering on pitying.

“Yes, Draco,” Blaise says slowly, talking to Draco the way that Draco used to talk to Crabbe and Goyle. It’s mildly infuriating. “That would be a very good idea indeed, you weird prat.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Pansy says happily. “I’m certain they’d love to join. They seemed rather envious when I told them about it. And you’ll get the added bonus of me not being a wretched homesick bore because I miss them so much.”

And so...that’s that. 

It takes four long meals and eleven arguments - and Draco’s honestly shocked that it’s only eleven - for the ten of them to plan the trip, going over maps and dates and lodging. Aurors, as it turns out, have a similar policy to Unspeakables, in that three months off after completing Junior Auror training is required as an encouragement for the trainees to decide whether or not they truly want to continue in the field, and Weasley and Potter have also, apparently inadvertently, saved up enough vacation time and sick leave to make up the rest. Ginny will be missing a considerable amount of the first couple of months, of course, for normal matches and practices plus the inevitable championship match, but she’ll be able to Apparate or Floo to them afterward, and her schedule will be freer after the season finishes. Longbottom can easily make arrangements for the homes and businesses that he does work for regularly to be tended to by his colleagues for the duration of the trip, Pansy and Luna are basically free agents anyway, and Percy, evidently, was more than happy to take several months off of his job at the Ministry - unsurprisingly, he, too, has accumulated a startlingly large number of vacation time - to take over the shop in George’s absence.

“What about you, Granger?” Pansy asks, over a seventh cup of tea. “How can you justify all that time off from your job? Aren’t you basically glued to your chair there?” Granger glares at her, but Draco’s fairly certain that, at this point, it’s just a reflexive response she has to Pansy’s voice addressing her directly.

“I have some time off as well,” Granger says in an odd tone. Draco narrows his eyes at her.

“But not five whole months’ worth, surely,” he says.

“Well, no,” Granger says, shifting uncomfortably. Then, glancing at Draco and Pansy and Blaise, she sits up straighter, looks very proud when she says, “It’s just that I’ve done such good work there that all of my supervisors happen to adore me, and when I framed this proposed trip as an educational and work-related experience, where I could learn about the different magical education institutes and policies in place internationally, they were more than happy to grant me paid leave.”

Draco bites back a grin, looks down the table at Blaise and Pansy, each of them eyeing Granger shrewdly, as if reevaluating their ages-old impressions of her. Finally, Pansy laces her fingers together and rests her chin on them.

“You’re a manipulative little snake,” she says admiringly, a wicked gleam in her eye.

“I’m not!” Granger squawks.

“You really are,” Blaise says. “I’m almost impressed.”

“Told you,” Draco says to them in a singsong voice, just to make Granger angry. She turns to him, furious. Draco laughs. 

“Well,” he says, looking down at all of their notes. “I believe that’s it, then. On the morning of the first of March--”

“My--” Weasley starts.

“Yes, your birthday, Weasley, _we know_ ,” Draco says thunderously. “Proper birthday arrangements will be made throughout the trip for those of us unlucky enough to be born on a day which now requires us to spend it with numerous people that we find insufferable. _Anyway_ , first of March, at dawn, we meet at the Manor, my father asks me for the hundred-fifty-third time whether I’m _sure_ I want to do this--” he briefly adopts his spot-on impression of his father’s voice, “--and with _these_ people, Draco, be reasonable--” George snickers, and Draco winks at him, “my mother grabs George’s hand and tearfully demands that he keep me safe, and then we go to Ireland.” He looks at Potter.

“You’re sure Finnigan and Thomas can provide us lodging?” he asks. Potter nods.

“I mean, they’re not particularly excited that _you’ll_ be staying there, but they’ve got more than enough room,” he says. Blaise scoffs.

“I can’t believe those two run a bed and breakfast,” he mutters.

“Seamus says it practically runs itself,” Potter says, “which works out fine, since Dean’s got his gallery, and Seamus obviously has the Auror--”

“He wasn’t talking about logistics, Potter,” Draco says, inserting as much sadness into his tone as he can under the circumstances. It’s depressing sometimes, being constantly reminded that Harry Potter really is so bloody stupid.

“I was referring to how very _gay_ it is, an embarrassing cliché, indeed,” Blaise says dryly, with a roll of his eyes, then he lets out a soft groan and looks at Draco with disgust. “This trip is the first time since Hogwarts that I’ve spent such an extended period of time with this many heterosexual people,” he says, glancing at Granger, Weasley, Potter, and Ginny. “I hope you understand the things I will do for you, my oldest and most cherished friend.”

“Rude,” mutters Pansy.

“ _I’m_ not straight,” Ginny says defensively.

“And Neville _is_ ,” Weasley says. 

“Ehh….” says Longbottom, tilting his hand side to side. Weasley and Potter look at him in shock. Longbottom shrugs, grinning.

“Obviously,” Blaise says to Ginny, “I didn’t intend to include you. You’re just sitting there among them. I heard too many believable rumors about you in school to think for even a moment that you’re _not_ interested in women.”

“Must be fun in the Holyhead Harpies locker rooms,” Pansy says, her eyebrows raised. Weasley makes a gagging sound and sticks his fingers in his ears. Ginny rolls her eyes.

“I would never cheat on Harry,” she says unnecessarily. Pansy makes a gagging sound of her own.

“God, why not? He’s so _boring_.” 

“Oh, yes,” Draco says quietly, bumping George’s knee with his as a twelfth argument builds. “This will be a very fun trip.” George looks at him and smiles.

“I’ll bring popcorn.”


	14. Chapter 14

They arrive at Finnigan and Thomas’ bed and breakfast around sunrise. It’s a lovely view - they picked a good location for the Quill & Fire Inn - but their hosts are still vaguely groggy and sleep-deprived when they all appear in the front garden. Finnigan greets everyone with more or less the expected brightness, save for Draco, Pansy, and Blaise, for which Draco can’t exactly blame him. Dean Thomas, though, looks somewhat happy to see them, _all_ of them, which seems...odd, at first, until he actually speaks.

“Is it true you made your own wand, Malfoy?” he asks. Draco bites his lip, unsure, before pulling his wand from his coat pocket. Thomas’ eyes go wide.

“ _Wicked_ ,” he says.

“Did Mr. Ollivander never send you a new one, Dean?” says Luna. Thomas turns around to see her and beams. 

“Luna,” he says happily, and pulls her into a tight hug as they all walk up the stairs to the veranda. “No, he never did. I went and bought one after the war, but not from him - his shop wasn’t reopened yet.” He takes a wand from the pocket of his sweatpants and looks at it, frowning. “This one isn’t as good as my first wand.”

“What happened to your first wand?” Pansy asks. Thomas looks at her blankly. 

“Snatchers took it, Pans,” Draco says through gritted teeth. Pansy goes pink in the face.

“Oh,” she says, looking apologetically wide-eyed at Thomas. “I--Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Thomas shrugs and glances at Luna.

“You’re always keeping such strange company, Luna,” he says fondly.

“I could make you a new one, if you’d like,” Draco says, surprising himself. “I mean, after this trip, obviously.” Thomas raises his eyebrows, then shrugs again.

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” he says, nodding. He joins Finnigan in holding the doors open for them, and in showing them to their rooms and giving them a tour of the property, and then in eating breakfast with them. Draco’s expecting him to also join them in their adventure into the forests of Ireland, but he looks at his watch as everyone else is still finishing their tea and stands. Finnigan looks up at him. 

“Time to go already?” he asks, standing as well. Thomas reaches out and squeezes his hand.

“I’ve got to finish a piece for the new exhibition, love. Racing a deadline,” he says. He leans in and gives Finnigan a quick kiss, before turning to the rest of the table. “I’ll see you lot tonight at dinner. Be careful out there. Watch out for banshees.” Draco and Weasley both drop their forks.

“Ignore him. I specifically chose banshee-free forests for this,” Finnigan says, rolling his eyes fondly and sitting down again, as Thomas leaves the room laughing. “Thinks he’s real funny, that one.”

An hour later, they wander in the first forest for about two minutes before Finnigan turns to Draco and says, bluntly, “So how does this work?” The truth is that Draco doesn’t precisely know, beyond the vague accounts in ancient wandmakers’ collected writings and the even vaguer accounts of Ollivander. But he knows the gist of it, knows how he always imagined himself doing it, so that’s what he decides to do. 

In the interest of returning the rudeness, Draco doesn’t answer. Instead, he walks up to an oak tree, squints into the branches above his head, and rests his hands on the trunk. A few moments later, several little bowtruckles appear, looking down at him from their branches. He smiles up at them. 

“Hello there,” he says quietly, soothingly. He pull a tiny bag from his coat, pours some wood lice into his palm, and holds his hand out toward the interested bowtruckles. “I mean no harm.” The bowtruckles make their way down the tree slowly, pausing every few moments to glance at him, like they’re sizing him up. Everything he’s read about this part of the process that was written and published in Europe says that this should be a distraction: feed the bowtruckles and then take what you need from the tree while they’re not looking. It made sense until Draco started to read books from elsewhere, where a wandmaker greets bowtruckles like old friends and proves oneself trustworthy enough for the bowtruckles to lend the tree their approval, and the tree in turn, having unshakable faith in its guardians, gives as many pieces of itself to the wandmaker as it desires. In Draco’s mind, wandmaking is a part of a circle connecting all magical things, so how can he justify deceiving bowtruckles and stealing from wand trees?

“What’s taking so long?” Weasley asks.

“Patience,” George says. Draco hears Luna walking toward him, but doesn’t take his eyes off the bowtruckles coming nearer. 

“Do you mind if I stand here and watch?” Luna asks from just behind him. “I just love these little guys.” Draco smiles, even though she can’t see it.

“Please do, Luna,” he says. “They are very cute.” The bowtruckles finally reach him, stand around his hand and nab up the wood lice, nibbling away peacefully, eyeing him every so often. When his hand is empty, one bowtruckle stands in his palm and stares at his face before walking up his arm. It tickles a bit, but Draco purses his lips, fights through the instinctual urge to laugh and fling his arm out. The bowtruckle stops before his shoulder, crosses its thin arms, and looks at him. Behind him, Luna gasps excitedly.

“You can trust me,” Draco says softly. Carefully, he retrieves his own wand and holds it out, horizontally resting in his palm, toward the bowtruckle, as proof that another tree chose him, another bowtruckle allowed its tree to give of itself to Draco. This bowtruckle steps closer, bends its little stick body over and examines the wand for a moment. Then, it looks back up at him, seems to smile, and runs back down his arm to the tree. Draco watches it scurry up the tree with its friends - _family?_ he wonders - and glance down at him. He knows, suddenly, what’s about to happen. He smiles.

“You lot might want to do that umbrella spell,” he calls over his shoulder. The warning comes just in time. The oak tree warms and begins to shake, and he ducks his own head as a dozen or so bits of branches fall to the ground. When it’s over, he glances around - at the three or four branches at his feet, behind him at the rest on the ground, and Finnigan, apparently having not reacted quickly enough, shaking bark from his hair - and back at the tree, grinning up at the bowtruckles, all looking down at him and returning his smile. “Thank you,” he says, patting the tree as well before bending down to collect the bits of wood. 

“That was _brilliant_ ,” Finnigan says. Even Potter and Weasley look impressed.

They spend the remainder of the day walking through forests, Apparating to new ones every hour, collecting over a hundred branches. He’s concerned, at the first tree that’s not oak, with how he’s going to keep them all organized and properly labelled, but when he looks down to pick up the bits of ash tree, he sees that Granger has laid out several large pieces of leather.

“Give me the oak branches,” she says. He does so wordlessly, curious about her request, and then watches as she places them on a leather cloth and wraps them up, tying them tightly with twine. She taps the bow with her wand and a small label appears: _Oak. Ireland. 1 March._ He gapes at her. She shrugs. “I thought you’d want to keep them all organized and properly labelled, since that’s…” She groans and closes her eyes in a wince. “Since that’s what _I_ would want to do.” A quick laugh bursts out of Draco.

“It’s good to see that you’ve finally come to your senses and seen the truth, Granger,” he says. She sighs and holds her hand out for the ash branches. 

“Besides,” she says, rolling the ash into an easily contained bundle, but not tying the cloth yet, “this way it will be easier to send back branches with an owl to Spinner’s End, so you’re not lugging around all the extra weight for the whole trip.” Draco hums happily.

“You truly are the brightest witch of your age,” he says, barely keeping together his composure as he does. Granger gives him a dry, flat look that sends him into a laughing fit. 

“This one thinks he’s real funny, too,” George says to Finnigan.

They arrive back at the Quill & Fire Inn in the evening to discover that Thomas has prepared a rather large - and delicious, Draco is pleased to find - birthday cake for Weasley, who looks utterly thrilled, as if he truly thought that they were all going to overlook his birthday. The next day they venture out again, and Draco ends up gathering enough cherry, oak, alder, rowan, holly, ash, hazel, willow, aspen, birch, pine, elm, yew, and strawberry tree to open his own location of Ollivander’s shop. That evening after dinner, while everyone else feasts on leftover birthday cake, Draco is writing down notes from the day when Thomas sits in the empty chair next to him.

“Malfoy, d’you mind if I ask you about something?” he asks. Draco looks up, blinking. 

“Oh,” he says, slightly panicky. “Sure, I suppose.” _What could he want to talk about? He was never actually imprisoned in my house--_

“Do you know anything about a man called Drayton Thomas?” 

Draco blinks. _Ah._ He swallows, clears his throat. “Not personally, no. He was your father, I assume?”

“Yeah,” Thomas says, wearing an odd grimace. “Turns out I’m not a Muggleborn. My dad was a wizard, and a Pureblood, apparently. I just want to know more about him, but all I could find is that he was killed by Death Eaters when I was a baby, after he left to keep me and my mum safe.” He drums on his knee with his fingers. “I don’t know, I just thought, you know, if anyone, you might know something, because of the Pureblood thing.”

“And because of the Death Eater thing?” Draco suggests dryly. Thomas laughs.

“Well, yeah.”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything about him,” Draco says, and then, at the shadow of disappointment that crosses Thomas’ face, “but...if anyone _really_ were to know, then it’s my father.” Thomas gives him a sharp look. “He didn’t kill him!” Draco exclaims. He glances around to see if his clarification has turned any heads, but only Blaise and George seem to have caught it, and they’re looking at him with intrigued confusion. He waves at them dismissively before turning back to a slightly amused Dean Thomas.

“My father didn’t kill yours,” Draco says more quietly. “My father would never have murdered a Pureblood wizard. His standards may have been, admittedly, pathetic and abysmal, but they did exist.”

“‘May have been’?” Thomas says, dubiously.

“He did, however, keep meticulous records of Death Eater activities during the First War, so there is a chance that he could have more information for you. I’ll write to him and ask him to find the file on your father and share it with you.” Thomas looks shocked.

“Why the hell would he keep records of that stuff?” he asks. Draco blinks at him.

“So he could use it to turn on the others, if it ever came to that, and for future blackmailing purposes,” he says, frankly confused at the question. “Obviously.” Thomas laughs again, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head.

“Oh, _obviously_ , yeah,” he says with a lopsided smile. “How silly of me.”

\---

They rendezvous with Fleur in France, where Draco collects wood from black pine, silver fir, European larch, blackthorn, whitebeam, smoketree, dogwood, and chestnut trees, in addition to variations on more of the same as he did in Ireland. They travel to the Alps, where they all shiver in their coats as a funny old witch in a tiny cold cabin sells Draco farfadet wings and trimmings from dahu hooves to use for wand cores.

“What’s a dahu?” Longbottom asks once they’re back on steady, warmer ground.

“It’s like a goat, but its legs are shorter on one side of its body, so it can only go up a mountain one way and has to walk down backwards,” Draco says, which makes Pansy so sad and distressed that Longbottom has to pull her aside and hug her for two minutes, assuring her that the dahu likely enjoy walking backwards down mountains perfectly fine, and that they probably have races and great fun and all. 

“She’s not exactly the cold-hearted bint she makes herself out to be, is she?” Weasley says.

“No, she’s not,” Draco, Blaise, Luna, and George say in unison, emphatically.

“And if I ever hear you calling her ‘bint’ again--” Draco and Blaise continue, but stop short when Longbottom and Pansy rejoin the group.

“Right,” says Pansy. “Where to next? Draco’s Muggle family?”

“ _Oui_ ,” Fleur says. “Loire Valley.”

Draco is pleased and proud to discover that his distant Muggle family, despite being Muggles, have done extremely well for themselves. They own over a dozen vineyards in total, throughout multiple regions of the valley, but the oldest and primary ones are located in Touraine. Rows and rows of grape vines span the hilly landscape as far as Draco can see, and as he gets closer to the main house, he spots several small children running around outside, and teenagers lying in the grass with books and Muggle playing cards. They all look up when Fleur calls to them, and all the wizards and witches except Fleur quickly point their wands at their own throats and ears, saying, “ _Translattio_ ,” before the wands get stowed away once more. Fleur casts a glance at Draco, who shrugs.

“It’s just easier,” he mutters. She laughs and shakes her head. It seems like what has to be the entire household has come out to greet them, excited to see Fleur and meet the friends she’s brought from England. She’s thrilled to do all of the introductions. Half of her guests are her brothers- and sisters-in-law, including the inevitability of Potter and Granger, so the Malfoys - _Malfois_ , Draco corrects himself, _they never had to Anglicize their name_ \- are happy to meet them, keep saying things like, “When will we meet the Englishman who took you away from the valley?” and “Is it true you’re a mother now? When will you bring your little English rose to see us?” Fleur waves them off with a winning smile and moves on to introduce Blaise, Pansy, Luna, Longbottom, and, lastly, as if aiming for theatrics, Draco.

All conversation ceases when the family looks at him, and for the first time since their arrival, he realizes why. Looking back at him are numerous pointed faces and dozens of pairs of grey eyes. Only about half of them are blonde, and only a few have a considerably sleek look about them, but it’s obvious nonetheless that this is a family reunion.

“You’re the English Malfoy?” one of the men asks. He looks to be in his early thirties, sandy hair to his shoulders and slicked back, with a strong jaw and stronger arms. Draco nods. The man smiles, steps forward and holds out his hand. For a brief moment, Draco remembers how he used to not even want someone like Granger to touch him, didn’t want to mingle in any way with Muggles or Muggleborns. He was so stupid then, so foolish, simple. Then he thinks of Calliope, remembers their first meeting, how he didn’t even hesitate to shake her hand. _It’s strange_ , he thinks, _the way that certain things get jostled out of you._ He shakes the man’s hand.

“I’m Franck,” the man says, “and I think my grandfather would very much like to meet you.” Fleur touches Draco’s elbow and gives him a mysterious smile.

“This is where I leave you,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. She says her farewells to everyone else, including the numerous Malfois who all implore her to stay, before walking back toward the road. Draco turns back to Franck and nods again.

“Why would your grandfather very much like to meet me?”

He learns, as Franck leads them all back to a smaller house where Franck’s grandfather, Henri, manages all of the numbers side of their wine business now that he’s too old to work the vineyards, that all of Henri’s children and grandchildren have grown up with one prevailing, peculiar, and important rule: If an English Malfoy ever shows up, then alert Henri immediately. 

“For generations, actually,” Franck says. “My grandfather’s grandfather, and his grandfather before that, and his grandfather, and so on. For centuries, the story goes. I never understood why.” 

“Your grandfather never told you?” Granger asks.

“No, even though I begged and begged as a child. My own father doesn’t know either. Allegedly, it is a secret that only gets passed on to a person of the next generation when the patriarch - or matriarch - is on their deathbed.” Draco glances back at Granger, who raises her eyebrows at him. She seems to have come to the same conclusion as he has. _The only one that makes sense, anyway_ , he thinks. 

Franck leads them into an office where a man who must be around sixty-five or so is sitting at a long desk, doing calculations in a notebook of yellow paper, his glasses slipping down his pointed nose.

“Pépère, I thought you were going to do all the accounting on the computer now. That’s why we taught you how to use Excel,” Franck says, his tone both long-suffering and amused. Draco notices, now that it’s been mentioned, the heavy-looking square object on the other side of the desk, connected with all kinds of wires to a board with the alphabet on it and a tall sort of tower with tiny blinking lights and a small object that he believes is called a _mouse_ although it doesn’t look like one in the slightest. Calliope has one of these contraptions, but doesn’t use it very often, swears that something about it makes her anxious. He glances at Blaise, who can probably name all of the parts of a computer at this point in his relationship with Calliope, and perhaps can even say how it works, but also appears to be wondering how accounting can be done on it well enough to excel at anything. 

“You know I do better with a pen and paper,” Henri says, not looking up. He crosses out a line, circles a figure, and flips the page. Franck shakes his head.

“Pépère, we have guests - Fleur Delacour brought them - and there’s someone you’ll want to meet,” he says. Henri grunts a little.

“Someone I’ll want to meet enough to tear me from this month’s numbers?” he says, dubious and still not looking up from his work.

“An English Malfoy has shown up,” Franck says. Henri freezes, drops his pen, and finally looks up. His eyes land on Draco immediately. He stands and removes his glasses, as if in a trance, and walks toward Draco, his eyes wide and searching, his finger pointed lazily at Draco as if of its own volition. Henri has grey eyes as well, and graying blond hair, short and wavy. Draco tries to think of his own grandfather, but he was barely two when Abraxas Malfoy died, and hardly ever saw him before besides, so all he has to go on is his father. Henri is a bit bigger round his middle than Lucius is now, but it’s clear in Henri’s gait that he used to be much thinner, though certainly more muscular than Draco’s father ever had need to be. Henri’s face is bearded, which is jarring to see, but it suits him. Henri stops in front of Draco and gazes still more without a word, at Draco’s hair, at his shoulders, at his pale skin.

“Uncanny, isn’t it?” Franck says. “He could go into town and everyone would speak to him like he’s one of us.” Franck’s voice seems to break Henri from his reverie. Henri turns back to the desk and gathers several papers as he shoves his glasses on again, hands them to Franck.

“Go get these to Estelle,” he says rather gruffly. “And then make sure that dinner is coming along so our guests can eat with us.” Franck blinks at him. After a few moments, he takes the papers from Henri, glances at Draco and his companions, shrugs and makes a face. 

“I’ll show you to the vineyards--”

“They can stay,” Henri says, sitting back down and not looking at any of them. He seems to be only pretending to do something on the computer, but Draco wouldn’t know for sure regardless. Draco looks at Franck, who looks confused and stunned. Franck shrugs again and exits. When Draco turns back, Henri is facing him in his chair again, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, an excited smile warming his features.

“You’re a wizard,” he says quietly - the secret that’s only told once per generation. It’s almost a question, like he wants to believe it but is afraid it might be untrue. Draco pulls his wand from his coat pocket and points it at the ceiling. Snow begins to fall in the room. Henri looks up and holds his hands out, catching the snowflakes in his palms. He lets out a boisterous, joyful laugh and stands again, looking at the others. 

“You’re all wizards and--and witches?” he says. They pull out their own wands, conjuring flowers, levitating pens, cleaning Henri’s glasses. He laughs again, utterly delighted, and looks back at Draco, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re here. Centuries, we’ve wondered if any magic Malfoys would visit. Generations in between thought it was a myth, you know. The truth got too old, got lost. A foolish family legend, they believed. They passed it down like it was a joke. My father knew, though. He knew it was true.”

“I might’ve come sooner if I knew there’d be such a welcome,” Draco says with a soft smile. He feels humbled here, somehow, at the enormity of this family he never bothered to really think about until he met Fleur. He’s wondering already how he can convince his father to come here one day.

“Oh! Do you want to see the cellar?” Henri asks, grinning. Then, without waiting for an answer, he says, “Follow me,” and walks out of the office. They do as he says, winding through the little house and eventually walking down into a small wine cellar. “This is the original structure,” he explains. “Every six or seven generations, the house gets torn down and another built in its place, but always around this cellar. No one’s ever touched it.” 

Draco wanders over to the wall of wine bottles, dusty and dark, and leans closer, his eyes narrowed to examine what space behind the bottles that he can see in this lighting. It seems to be shimmering, almost moving, like the the surface of the ocean. _That has to be the magic_ , he thinks, fascinated, and then a bottle suddenly disappears in front of his face. He steps back in surprise. Behind him, Henri claps, euphoric. 

“That’ll be your parents, then. When I was a small boy, I would sit in here and watch for hours, waiting for a bottle to disappear,” he says. “I was very young, I didn’t think I wanted to work the vineyard, I wanted to get out of Loire Valley, and in here, I could be reminded that there was more, indeed, out there. I didn’t know the secret, then, of course, but I knew to call it - whatever happened in this room - magic. Imagine my surprise when my ailing father pulled me aside and told me about our distant, English magical family, that they were the ones taking bottles from the cellar, from a channel away.”

“But the bottles always reappear on our end,” Draco says, staring at the empty space where the bottle once was.

“Give it a moment,” says Henri. Seconds later, a new bottle materializes, and Draco steps closer again to read the label.

“It’s the exact same wine,” he says, in awe, glancing back at Henri. “Same year and everything.”

“I believe the idea of it is, if the Malfoys in England drink a 1682 cabernet sauvignon that they just love, then they should be able to drink more of it whenever they want,” Henri says, smiling.

“There are newer ones, though,” Draco says, turning to look through the wines on the other wall. “When do they get added to the shelves?”

“As best as we’ve been able to tell, it’s whenever the English Malfoys decide that’s what they want.” Draco can’t help but chuckle.

“Seems rather self-serving,” he says. “Definitely a Malfoy invention.”

They eat dinner with the entire family outside at several long tables shoved together end to end. It’s not unlike a dinner at the Burrow, except that the dishes don’t float through the air. Draco and George sit next to Henri and talk very quietly to him about magic and the Wizarding world while the other Weasleys and their friends are dispersed throughout the table, among the Malfoi family, eating enormous helpings of food and drinking incredible wine. They all spend the night there, eat breakfast there the next morning with just Henri and his wife Collette, who loads them down with bread and cheese and wine before they go. 

Draco glances around as they’re leaving, looks back at all the family as the day begins, children running and laughing, teenagers sitting in swings and reading, adults chasing after their kids or heading out to work in the vineyards. It’s a strange look into an alternate universe, where their grey eyes are warm and inviting, not cold like Draco’s and his father’s, but he gazes upon them with fondness, anyway. 

And it’s damn good wine, besides.

\---

In Spain and Portugal, they all have to perform the translation spells again in order to communicate with the residents of the local magical communities, who all seem to find them very amusing, for some reason. Draco collects more of the same tree branches as he did in Ireland, but also carob, almond, jacaranda, orange, avocado, juniper, olive, and lemon. Draco, Pansy, and Granger sit in front of the fire of the inn they stay at in Portugal and watch an ashwinder be born from the embers. The moment the ashwinder crumbles into dust, all three of them point their wands at the eggs it just laid and mutter a freezing charm. Draco retrieves a small unbreakable glass jar from his bag and carefully place the frozen eggs inside before sealing it. 

“I think I’ll go down to the owl post office tomorrow morning before we leave,” he says. “I’ve got enough branches and cores to send back to Spinner’s End to wait for my return.”

“How will the owl get into your house?” Pansy asks, leaning back on her elbows.

“Well, technically I’m sending it to Calliope,” Draco says. “I left a key with her. She can leave it in my house.”

“I’ll go with you,” Blaise says, standing behind Pansy and tapping his finger on top of her head. “I’ve got a letter to send to her.”

“It’s nice, you know,” says Granger, half-smug, “you lot cavorting with a Muggle.” George appears then, sitting down next to Draco and resting his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“Hello, love,” Draco says, amused. “Tired?” George hums. 

“Come to bed,” he mumbles. Draco looks at his watch. 

“Alright, but you’ve got to change out of your day clothes before you fall asleep this time, George, I mean it,” he says. George only laughs.

\---

When they arrive in Italy the next afternoon, they learn that their planned lodging for the evening has fallen through. They stand in front of a fountain and discuss their options, irritatingly, for thirty whole minutes, and finally, Blaise, who has remained silent since they heard the news, turns his back on the rest of the group and addresses Draco directly.

“Do you truly vouch for all of these people?” he asks. Draco blinks at him, slightly startled.

“I vouch for George,” he says. “I imagine that he vouches for the rest of them, so really it’s a question of how far your trust in George extends, I suppose.” Blaise glances at George and nods solemnly. 

“Give me one minute and this problem will be solved,” he says, and walks away. Seven confused expressions turn on Draco and Pansy.

“What’s he gone off for?” Potter asks, but even they don’t know. Exactly one minute later, Blaise returns carrying a rusty water can.

“Grab hold, all of you,” he says, before anyone can ask questions. So they grab hold, and a few moments later, they’re standing outside a large, elaborate villa. 

“Oh, what a lovely house!” Luna says.

“What? Where are we?” says Weasley.

“Blaise!” Draco and Pansy say, surprised and happy. 

“You didn't have to do this, mate,” Draco says.

“It's just like I remember,” says Pansy.

“This is your house, Zabini?” Longbottom asks.

“It's mine,” Blaise confirms, in a bored voice. “It belonged to my father. He left it to me when he died, but I was only two years old, so it couldn't be legally signed to me until I turned sixteen. Don’t ask questions.” Longbottom blinks at him.

“Wait, so, you really are Italian?” Weasley asks, brow furrowed. Blaise gives him a dry look.

“Black people do live in Italy, Weasley,” he says slowly. Weasley immediately blanches.

“That’s not what I meant!” he exclaims. Granger takes his hand and pats his arm soothingly. “I just thought you being Italian was, like, just something people said if they’d heard your name but hadn’t actually ever seen you.” Blaise looks at him with a pained expression.

“ _Ron_ ,” Granger hisses.

“Merlin bless your patience, Granger,” Blaise mutters as they walk up the stairs to the front door.

Inside, Draco is stunned to discover that the enormous living room has been made into an exact replica of the Slytherin common room. Pansy squeals and rushes across the room, jumping into a large plush chair next to the fireplace, and Draco has an odd, disconcerting flash of a hundred similar memories overlaid with one another, of Pansy, wearing a black velvet mini skirt and spotless white stockings, lounging in an identical black velvet chair in the common room, and Blaise sitting on the sofa beside her chair, on the side furthest from her, the space between them waiting for Draco to fill it after Crabbe and Goyle go to bed and Draco feels comfortable shedding the skin he wore all day.

The three of them spent countless evenings that way, staying up too late together, reviewing one another’s homework, eating the sweets sent by Draco’s mother, making plans to spend their holidays together. That was how they made plans to spend a week in this very villa the summer before fourth year, when Blaise learned that he would officially be inheriting it soon enough. They basically had the house all to themselves, as hands-off as Blaise’s mother was, and they discussed what Blaise would do with it once it belonged to him, the kind of parties he would host, the people he could impress with it, and Draco boasted about his family’s seats at the upcoming Quidditch World Cup until Pansy hit a Bludger at him and for once didn’t pretend it was an accident, and they swam in the lake just past the back garden and ate their fill of pasta and napped in this living room.

It didn’t look like this back then. It looked very Tuscan, light and warm and soft, everything from the style of the ceiling to the paint colors on the walls, reminding Blaise of his father. He said he wanted to keep it that way, was adamant about it even when Draco and Pansy suggested other options. The Slytherin common room, though, was - and undoubtedly still is, although Draco doesn’t know for certain - dark and cold and hard. He stands in the large open doorway, vaguely uncomfortable with this turn of events. He can’t understand why Blaise would change it so much, and to make it look like _this_ , of all things.

“Whoa,” Longbottom says, walking in and glancing around. “Is this really what your common room looked like?” 

“Yes,” Blaise, Potter, and Weasley reply. Blaise casts a scathing look to them. 

“How would you two know, exactly?” he asks, sounding only minimally sincere.

“Er--” says Potter.

“Draco, come sit!” Pansy calls from her chair. She kicks at the sofa next to her, the high heel of her boot nudging the cushion where he would be sitting if this was the real common room, and if it was five years ago. Draco goes, grabbing Blaise by the elbow and dragging him along as well.

“I suppose there’s no point in asking why you won’t unhand me,” Blaise says as they approach the sofa.

“This room didn’t used to look like this,” Draco whispers. Blaise swallows, blinks a bit slower than he normally does, so Draco knows that he’s understood it correctly, as a question.

“Yes, well, we all cope in our own ways,” Blaise says quietly, taking his essentially assigned seat on the sofa. Draco sits beside him, glancing at him with a raised eyebrow. Blaise lets out a barely noticeable sigh. 

“That whole first year afterward...you had your therapy and working at George’s shop. Pansy had treatment and moving out of her parents’ home. I had my job training...and this,” Blaise says, with a slight gesture toward the house around them. “This is where I went after work. I lived here full-time. I needed to be away from England, but I didn’t want to think about _why_ I needed to be away from England, so I didn’t want to look around me all the time and have Italy searing my retinas.” He leans back on the sofa, kicks gently at the table in front of them. “We didn’t really get to finish our education. I wanted to go back.”

“You missed us,” Pansy says, leaning forward, sprawling over the armrest of her chair, practically crawling into Draco’s lap. Draco rolls his eyes at her, but goes ahead and pulls her toward him, crowding them on the couch. Somehow this usually ended up happening on those nights in the common room, too, Pansy and Draco both giving into their open desire for attention in one way or another, delighting in making Blaise roll his eyes at them and pretend not to care even as they could see the nearly imperceptible lift of the corner of his mouth.

“I did, yes,” Blaise admits, looking away from them under the guise of keeping an eye on the others as they wander around the room. He frowns. “Quite a lot, as it happened. It was easier to imagine you were here, if the place looked like this.” He glances back at Draco and Pansy, pauses, and then rolls his eyes. “You know, the bizarre thing about the two of you,” he says, this time at a normal volume, in a tone that Draco grew accustomed to by the age of nine, “is that separately, you’re actually each fairly satisfied with not being a severe focal point in whatever room you’re in, but get you together, and suddenly your mostly dormant pathological needs for attention just feed into one another’s until you’re absolute menaces.” Draco and Pansy grin at him, and he rolls his eyes again, looks around to see George nearby. “That’s why they were such assholes in school.” George hums. 

He’s staring at a framed photo on the wall, the only one among portraits and valuable artwork, the only one out of place in this strange shadow common room. Draco stands and walks over to him, sees that the photo is from that summer before fourth year. Much younger versions of himself, Blaise, and Pansy look out at him, arrogant and proud and then laughing at each other, at themselves. The Pansy in the photo hooks her arms affectionately around the neck of the Draco in the photo, looks at him rather adoringly, and he grins flirtatiously at her. Merlin, Draco hadn’t even kissed her yet that summer. The Blaise in the picture rolls his eyes, makes a very rude hand gesture at his friends that causes them to shove at him until all three of them topple out of frame. 

“God, that’s strange,” he mutters. George hums again, a question this time. “Seeing myself at fourteen again,” Draco explains, “before any of… _this_ happened. Before the Dark Lord, before Azkaban, before Occlumency, before Dumbledore….”

“All I can think of when I look at old photos of you like this is how good it felt to punch you in the stomach that one time,” George says quietly. Draco snorts.

“It was, admittedly, a good hit,” he says. “You definitely deserved to get banned from Quidditch, though, so I hope you’re not expecting any apologies from me about that.”

“‘s’no problem,” George says lightly, with a shrug. “You definitely deserved to get punched.”

“Fair enough.” Draco slips his fingers between George’s. “It’s not like you haven’t more than made up for it, what with the number of times you’ve kissed me in that exact spot and all,” he murmurs. He glances sidelong at George, sees the smirk on his face, smirks a bit himself.

“Why, you scarlet terror,” George whispers, as if he’s actually scandalized. Draco bites back a laugh even as he feels his face warm. “Are you really trying to seduce me in your best friend’s house?” Draco glances around at the others in the room. 

Longbottom and Luna have taken his and Blaise’s places on the sofa next to Pansy. Luna is admiring Blaise’s magical handiwork, the design of the room, saying she’s always wondered what the Slytherin common room looked like. Blaise has grown rather fond of Luna, enjoys her frankness and little oddities, and he gives her the tiniest smile as he draws his wand and says, “I can make some adjustments, if you would be more comfortable, Luna.” 

He flourishes his wand toward the corner of the room, nearest the doors to the garden, where a cutaway portion of a wide circular room begins constructing itself in lightly-colored stone. Blue and bronze silks appear, draping over the walls, and a midnight blue carpet decorated with stars materializes on the floor. Luna gasps excitedly, her face lighting up, which confirms Draco’s assumption about what Blaise has evidently replicated now. Questions start flying around then, with Potter and Granger and Weasley and Longbottom wondering how Blaise knows what the Ravenclaw common room looks like, and Luna runs over to the newly amended space, removing her shoes to walk barefoot on the carpet and marvel at the ceiling, suddenly partially domed directly above where she stands. 

Feeling safely as though they won’t be missed, Draco turns toward George, who’s still facing the photo with one eyebrow raised, waiting patiently for an answer to his previous question. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Draco says quietly. The corner of George’s mouth twitches and a mischievous gleam rises in his eyes. Heat settles low in Draco’s belly, right around where George hit him that day in fifth year. He bites his lip, squeezes George’s hand, says, “Follow me.”

He sneaks out of the room, up the stairs, turns down a handful of corridors and finally enters a bedroom, large and dark and comfortable. The bed was far too big for him the last time he was here. _Now, though_ , he thinks, his eyes scanning the deep green satin sheets and fluffy black comforter, _it’ll fit the circumstances nicely._

“This was my bedroom when I stayed here,” he says. Behind him, George gives a little grunt.

“Did you and Blaise fool around in here?” he asks, his voice fairly gruff. Draco notices a hint of jealousy in his tone and smiles. He _likes_ when George gets this way.

“No,” he says honestly, turning around to face George. His smile fades and his face flushes immediately at the way George is looking at him, hungry and focused. He swallows. “I hadn’t even been kissed yet, last time I was here.” Something sparks behind George’s eyes. Draco licks his lips, gives into a bold, dark impulse swimming through his veins like a snake winding its way through a river. “Why do you care? That’s all in the past, you know. Or did you come here hoping to stake your claim?”

“He never had you like I have,” George says, verging on breathless. “I think my claim has already been well-staked.”

“Not in this room,” Draco says matter-of-factly, voice dripping with innocence. He begins walking smoothly backward toward the bed, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, never taking his eyes off of George. “Not in this villa. Not anywhere that belongs so very much to Blaise.” George’s hands curl into fists at his side. Draco’s breath catches in his throat when the back of his legs hit the bed. He raises his eyebrows, widens his eyes to a doe-like openness, seeps sweetness into his tone when he says, “Don’t you want this place to know that _I_ belong to _you_?” 

George is on him in a flash, pushing him onto the bed and dragging him up further until his head is resting on a pillow. George kisses him until Draco’s breathless and dizzy, and then he kisses down Draco’s neck, pausing to suck the tender skin under Draco’s ear, to nip at the column of Draco’s throat. Draco gets his own hands on George, under George’s shirt, scraping his fingernails along the warm skin. George growls, sits up to pull off his shirt. Draco unbuttons his own, moves to shrug it off as well but George stops him with a strong hand around his wrist. 

“Leave it on,” he orders. Draco nods, eyes widening in anticipation. George smiles down at him, rolls his hips against Draco’s. Draco shudders. 

“Yes, yes,” he says. George leans down over him again, licks teasingly over Draco’s lips before sitting back up and then shuffling off the bed, standing at the foot. Draco sits up on his elbows, wide-eyed. “Wha--what--”

“Strip,” George says.

“But you said--”

“Everything but the shirt.” Draco does as George tells him, kicks off his shoes and toes off his socks, shoves his jeans down his hips and fumbles to push them off his legs. George stands there watching him, offering no help, and once Draco finally gets his left ankle free from its denim shackle, his hands go to work on his boxer briefs, but George holds up a hand and says, “Enough.” Draco drops his hands to his sides, flexing his fingers over the sheets, obedient but needy. 

George is the one to remove Draco’s pants, after five minutes of palming his hard cock through the soft material, an act so torturous in its simplicity that it has tears clinging to Draco’s eyelashes, his bottom lip bitten and swollen. Draco’s begging - it’s out of turn, not allowed, George hasn’t explicitly said he wants to hear Draco’s voice, but the words spill from him anyway, pleading for release, for a kiss, for George to mark him up, _anything_ , and George simply stays kneeling on the edge of the bed, his fingers stroking lazily up and down Draco’s dick, completely unfazed by the desperation Draco feels.

“You should be embarrassed, you know,” George says finally. Draco shuts up instantly. “You’re so easy, Draco. That’s quite unbecoming of a Malfoy.” Draco whines. He knows. He is embarrassed, and George knows as much, knows that Draco gets off on the vague humiliation of it. “I’m not going to fuck you until you come, in case you’re wondering. I know you can. You’ve done it before, remember?”

“Yes,” Draco gasps, “but you were--you were sort of--you were fucking me then, kind of.” George laughs. Draco closes his eyes, tries to catch his breath.

“I had your ankles over my shoulders and my dick between your thighs,” George says. “Or are you referring to when you were on your hands and knees and I was just rubbing between your cheeks, teasing your hole? Wasn’t even touching your cock then, either time, so this should be even easier for you.” Draco whimpers.

“You’ll fuck me after?” he asks. “Immediately? You won’t make me wait any longer?” George hums thoughtfully.

“I’d love to, but I’ll have to prep you first. It’s been a week since I fucked you properly, you know, and you’ll need to be opened up for me again. Oh, no need for that, darling,” he says sweetly, in response to Draco’s cry, “you’ll be so pliant then, it won’t take much time at all. You just concentrate on the task at hand, yeah? Be a good boy.” Draco arches off the bed, nodding frantically.

After he comes all over his stomach and chest, George trails his fingers through it, spits on them, and slips two inside of Draco, who cries out again at the sensation, his voice reedy. They’ve done it like this a few times before, and it’s never as smooth or easy as it is with proper lube, but it’s exactly what Draco wants, what he needs. After a week of just using their hands and mouths, he wants to _feel_ it. 

“Think you can come for me again, dear?” George says quietly. 

Draco breathes out a gentle, “Oh.” He feels so light now, wishes desperately for the heavy weight of George over him, the thickness of George’s cock inside him to ground him, but he probably could, if George says the right words.

“Can you be my good boy?” George asks. Draco keens.

“Yes, yes,” he says. “I can be good.” Draco thrusts his hips up against nothing, his barely softened cock already growing hard again. He squeezes around George’s fingers, imagines it’s George’s dick. Draco closes his eyes and licks his bitten lips, and every fantasy he once had in this very bedroom about Blaise becomes a fantasy about George, melding with the realities he’s shared with him, the sweet way George demands to be kissed while they’re fucking, the first time George asked him to beg and he dropped to his knees with with fingers curling in the carpet, the growl in George’s throat when he’s moments away from coming, always inside Draco, always so deep. 

Draco comes then, his orgasm hitting him like a train, taking him by shameful surprise, and George removes his fingers, stands long enough to divest himself of his own clothes, and enters Draco in one long stroke. Draco sighs in relief, a soft laugh escaping him, and George sinks his hand into Draco’s hair, pressing his mouth to Draco’s ear.

“Such a good boy,” he whispers, his thrusts already gaining momentum. Draco flails a bit, feeling rather boneless, but he manages to get his arms around George’s back, leaving scratches on George’s skin and squeezing at the muscles working underneath. “You’re so good, Draco, so good for me, every time. No one else knows how good you are.” Draco gasps.

“Don’t want them to,” he says, wrapping his legs around George’s waist, digging his heels into George’s back as well. George bites at the crook of his neck. “ _Fuck_. No one else needs to know. Nobody else matters like you do. Just-- _ah_ \--just want them to know I’m yours.” A familiar growl vibrates against Draco’s collarbone. He smiles in sheer anticipation. “Yes,” he hisses, one hand coming up to rest on the back of George’s neck. “Your turn, George, to give me what I want. Haven’t I been good?” George tugs hard at Draco’s hair, digs the fingers of his other hand deep into the soft muscle of Draco’s thigh.

“One more, love,” George groans out, and Draco obeys, his voice gone, his vision fading, but he’s present enough to feel George following him over the edge, hear him crying out Draco’s name. George is petting his hair and thigh when Draco resurfaces, whispering praise and promises, asking if Draco feels alright. Draco feels utterly boneless and can’t manage to scrape together any meaningful sounds into a word in any language, so he does the second best thing and gives George a thumbs up. George huffs out a laugh. “Two more minutes to catch our breath,” he says, “and then a shower.”

\---

Draco and George, freshly clean and feeling quite relaxed, find the others outside half an hour later, wearing minimal clothing, lounging in and around the lake. Blaise, his toes in the water, tosses a bottle of Defense Against the Light Rays potion to Draco and raises his eyebrow as soon as Draco pulls off his t-shirt to match this new dress code.

“Have fun?” Blaise asks. Draco’s skin reddens all the way down his neck. “Whichever one of you tried to hide those bruises and scratches did a poor job.”

“We didn’t try,” George says dryly.

“You said it didn’t look that bad!” Draco whispers accusingly at him, wild-eyed. Blaise chuckles. 

“Please tell me he’s not actually this much of a prude in the midst of the act,” he says. George grins.

“Decidedly not.” 

“You are both terrible people,” Draco says, rolling his eyes even as his voice reaches shrill levels, “and I am going to go sit in the shade far away from you so that my delicate pale English skin doesn’t burn to a crisp.”

“Good idea,” Blaise says, very seriously. “Any potion for sunburn relief would really sting on that bite mark on your neck.” Draco scowls at him.

The next day, they Apparate through ten different cities and towns, wandering through forests with local witches and wizards, collecting branches from olive and cypress and cherry laurel trees.

Draco wears a scarf.

\---

In Poland, all ten of them plus every last member of the magical community over the age of sixty can see thestrals. Draco purchases a few thestral hairs each from a dozen old wizards and witches, listens to what they call their “witnessing stories” - reasons they can see these creatures - and walks away from every village wiping his eyes. He has an easier time buying hippogriff feathers and talons from local keepers, the only sources which can guarantee authenticity, but he doesn’t appreciate those conversations as much.

They stick to one location for wood this time. The Crooked Forest, though more of a grove than a forest, is home to about a hundred pine trees that all bend sharply to the north just above the ground before curving back upright after growing sideways for about one to three meters. It creates a deeply disconcerting effect all around, makes Granger and Weasley visibly uncomfortable, and causes Ginny, able to join them for the full day this time, and Potter to have to sprint back out to stave off panic attacks. The bowtruckles, Draco is baffled to discover, are bent and curved as well, just like the trees they guard. Longbottom examines each tree long after Draco has moved on, searching for some magical explanation, for surely no Muggle interference could deform the trees like this, but ultimately finds nothing. 

As they’re walking back, double checking that they’ve visited each tree, Draco begins to feel an inexplicable sense of crushing despair. His shoulders slump and his pace slows. He looks around him. Why is he even here, chasing this stupid, impossible goal? He’s only made one wand, and that was undoubtedly a fluke. There’s no way that it will work again. This was a foolish excursion, and now he’s stuck traveling the bloody world with people who hate him, who will always hate him and blame him for--

“Everyone stop walking _right now_ ,” Pansy says suddenly, her clear voice ringing through the bleakness in Draco’s mind. They all turn toward her. Draco can see now that everyone else looks just as morose as he feels. He furrows his brow and glances at Pansy, sees her staring out at the woods behind them, her eyes narrowed, a fierce look on her face. “ _Bestia Revelio!_ ” 

A soft breeze seems to blow through the forest before them, and then - a tiny movement, a stone overturning, a little, “Oof!”

“What--” Weasley starts, but he stops short when a small creature stands up, revealing its large, rounded gray head and its excessively hairy body. 

“ _Stupefy!_ ” George shouts. The creature falls backward again, unconscious. 

“It’s a pogrebin,” Pansy says as they gather round it. “A demon, native to Russia. It follows around humans, and after a couple of hours, the humans start to feel depressed and hopeless. When they sit down, overcome by sadness, the pogrebin attacks and tries to eat them. This one must’ve been following us for awhile.” 

“Those actually exist?!” says Granger, horrified.

“How’d you guess, Pansy?” Luna asks. 

“I started feeling the way I felt right after the war, and when I looked around at you all, it seemed like you lot were feeling the same way,” Pansy says. She nudges Blaise’s shoe with hers. “I figured that there had to be a reason for _all_ of us suddenly looking like we met a pack of dementors.” Draco crouches down to get a better look at the pogrebin. It really is absolutely _covered_ in hair. He rummages through his bag for a moment and pulls out a small knife.

“Malfoy!” Granger exclaims, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

“Whoa, Malfoy, slow down!” Weasley says, holding his hands out in a mollifying gesture. Draco, confused, peers blankly up at them. 

“What?” he asks.

“You can’t just kill it!” they both say. Draco blinks at them. Their words sting.

“My god,” he says, shaking his head, “you two really still think the very worst of me.” He looks back down and swiftly cuts through the hair on the pogrebin’s chest, gathering the shavings into a jar to experiment with a wand core. He stows away the jar and the knife back in his bag as he stands and gives Weasley and Granger a scathing look. “Him, I understand,” he says, addressing Granger, “but I have to admit that I’m rather disappointed in you. I thought for sure that you knew me better than that by now.” He stalks past them, unmoved by Granger’s frown.

Draco doesn’t speak to Granger throughout their trip to Germany, hands her branches from spruce trees without a word, doesn’t respond to her desperate joke about hippogriffs as he buys more talons and feathers. He ignores her for much of their time in Hungary, too, bites his tongue against a retort when she rambles about female graphorns only to be corrected by Pansy as he purchases horns from a conservationist.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit hard on Hermione?” Potter says to him that evening at the inn, as they wait for the girls to come down from their rooms before going to dinner. Draco sighs and clenches his jaw.

“Obviously,” he says. “It can’t possibly be anything like the other way round. _She_ can’t have done something wrong or hurtful to me, and _I’m_ clearly the one who needs to apologize in this and every other situation because I’m _such_ a terrible person.” He rolls his eyes. “I think I’d rather have a date night tonight. What say you, George?” George actually says nothing, just takes Draco’s hand and walks out, down the street and a few blocks over to the cafe where they ate breakfast earlier.

“It bothers you that you’re so hurt by it, doesn’t it?” George asks, taking a sip of coffee. Draco crosses his arms.

“I shouldn’t be surprised. _That’s_ what bothers me,” he says through gritted teeth. “She seemed to be giving me a genuine chance. I was thinking of her as a friend.”

“Good people make mistakes, too, you know,” George says quietly. 

“Trust me, I am well the fuck aware,” Draco snaps. “Are you going to tell me that I’m being too hard on her, too? Because I can just as soon eat dinner alone.”

“No, I don’t think you’re being hard on her,” George says evenly. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t say it, because it would be good to hear you being hard on someone other than yourself for once, honestly. Listen, you’re well within your rights to be angry with her. You don’t have anything to apologize for, and you deserve an apology from her. I’m with you on this.” He reaches across the table, his hand upturned, and wiggles his fingers until Draco gives him a reluctant smile and places his hand in George’s. “I’m with you on everything. That’s the deal here, alright?” 

“Yes, alright,” Draco says, squeezing George’s hand.

“I’m just saying that you should be prepared to not shout her down when she apologizes, which _will_ be soon, I’m sure. It’s not like you’re Ron. She’s got no vested interest in not being on speaking terms with you for days on end,” George says. Draco raises his eyebrows.

“Do they really go days without speaking to one another?”

“They did in school. Harry’s got some stories,” George says, simultaneously rolling his eyes and grimacing. “Allegedly they’ve gotten better, but it’s Ron, and it’s Hermione, so I’m sure they still go the occasional stretch without talking.”

“Merlin, I just can’t fathom doing that with you,” Draco says. “I _want_ to talk with you. I _like_ you. Why bother being together otherwise?” 

“I really do love you,” George says with a grin. Draco smiles and blushes a bit.

“I love you, too.”

Granger apologizes as they’re walking through a birch forest the next day. She sounds genuinely distressed and looks thoroughly remorseful, and honestly, Draco likes _her_ , too, and he’s missed the intellectual stimulation of speaking to her, so it turns out that he has no vested interest in continuing to hug his grudge. 

“I was thinking, you might want to consider making some wands as we travel,” she says, sticking close to his side throughout the morning, “or else you’ll be returning home to a house _full_ of tree branches and potential cores. Might be overwhelming.”

“As usual, I’m way ahead of you, Granger,” Draco says, ignoring her glare at his casual slight. “I’ve been keeping a few from each country’s batch of wood and working on whittling them down before bed.” He glances at her. “You know, you don’t have to pretend to be motivated by _my_ best interest. I know you just want to see the process.” Granger huffs a bit.

“Fair enough,” she says. After several steps in silence, she shoves him. Draco blinks, mildly affronted, and nearly shoves her back before he realizes it was playful. “You’ll let me see it, won’t you?” she asks. Draco smirks.

“I suppose you’ll just have to be patient and see, Granger.”

\---

They spend an hour in Romania collecting branches from black walnut and white poplar trees before Apparating to the dragon sanctuary to meet Charlie, who does a double take when he sees Blaise before pulling him into a hug.

“Okay,” Blaise says awkwardly, trying to hide how spooked he is by Charlie’s actions. “Doing alright, Charles?” Charlie snorts.

“It’s ‘Charlie,’ mate. You’re so strange,” he says, clapping Blaise on the arm, laughing. Blaise blinks at him. “And you didn’t mention in your last letter you’d be here with this lot.”

“Yes, well--”

“You’ve been writing to Charlie?” Draco asks, surprised. He can tell by the movement in Blaise’s jaw that he’s cringing as they follow Charlie into the sanctuary.

“After you gave me his message, I figured that it was time to reply to the letters he’d sent me previously,” Blaise says, shrugging. Before Draco can respond, Pansy tugs violently at his elbow.

“Ow! Pansy, what--”

“ _That_ is Charlie Weasley?!” she whispers, her eyes wide and staring at Charlie’s back. Draco, realizing instantly what she means, barely manages to hold back a laugh.

“I know,” he says lowly.

“ _God_ ,” Pansy says. “I mean, George is, objectively, fairly good-looking, you know, fine choice and all, but _damn_.” Draco snickers.

“You should meet Bill,” he says.

Their group walks purposefully past dragon after dragon, safely inside their sizable enclosures, unchained and obviously treated very well. Charlie talks about each one, their families, their quirks, stopping every once in awhile to stick his hand into a pen to greet a few little one-week-old Portuguese Long-Snouts and some two-month-old Hebridean Blacks. In the infirmary area, they’re allowed to pet a sick Romanian Longhorn, tired and docile as she recovers from her illness, and Pansy takes a photo to send to Daphne Greengrass with the camera that Blaise brought along on this trip and hasn’t used himself yet. Then, just before Charlie opens the door to a tiny, shabby building near the infirmary camp, he turns toward them all, grinning, and says to Draco, “I think you’ll find some things you can use in here.” 

Inside the building are baskets and boxes full of dragon teeth, claws, scales, and heartstrings, all organized by breed and age. Draco is in such stunned and thrilled disbelief that he drops his bag onto the hard tile floor. Charlie explains that naturalists like Luna and Pansy visit the sanctuary every few months to collect data for research, so the dragonologists at the sanctuary keep every lost or broken tooth, every damaged claw removed, every peeled scale, and every heartstring of a fallen dragon. 

“You can take whatever you want, Malfoy,” Charlie says, leaning against the doorway. He doesn’t even finish his sentence before Draco is waving his wand so that dozens of jars fly from his bag to scoop samples from each basket. As the lid of each jar closes of its own volition, Draco taps it with his wand to create a label and sends it flying back to his bag, arranging themselves neatly inside, from _Antipodean Opaleye. Claws. Age 2 years. 24 March._ through _Ukrainian Ironbelly. Teeth. Age 284 years. 24 March._

The next day, in Sweden, Draco gathers linden and honeysuckle and buckthorn branches. A petting zoo owner sells him unicorn hair and augurey feathers, and he meets with a naturalist who specializes in glumbumbles - flying, furry gray insects that produce a treacle which induces melancholy when consumed - and buys wings and several vials of treacle from her. They spend the following day at Luna’s whim, wandering around the mountains and hills in hopes of spotting a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Granger gets huffy halfway through the morning, which Draco assumes is what causes Pansy to go full-force in her true believer mode around the same time. Longbottom seems to genuinely be on the lookout as well, and, to Draco’s surprise, Blaise becomes fairly sincere in the search, too, and at the end of the day, puts his arm around Luna’s shoulders and says, “You’ll find it one day, Luna.”


	15. Chapter 15

Blaise finally uses his camera in Greece, where they visit a sanctuary that houses chimaeras, griffins, manticores, and hippocampuses. The sanctuary itself is more like a rehabilitation center than anything, where these creatures come from abusive and neglectful situations to recover and heal. According to the head of the Manticore Care Unit, the organization was all started with the intent to release the beasts brought here back into the wild eventually, return them to their natural habitats, but the severity of their endangered statuses along with the risk potential for harming wizards and Muggles alike and exposing Wizarding Greece has made it impossible to do so. They’re kept here for life, instead, comfortable and happy and adjusted to cohabitation with other species, and the sanctuary receives ample funding from the Greek Minister of Magic as well as charitable donations to keep up their services. 

“They do seem to enjoy it here,” Draco says, scratching a chimaera behind her ear. Blaise snaps another photo.

“I’ll have to bring Calliope one day,” he says quietly, later, after holing himself up for hours in a room in their hotel suite to develop the photos. He sorts through them all while sitting on the floor, trying to decide which ones are good enough to send to her with his next letter. “I wish I could be there to see her face when she looks at these.”

“You can Apparate back to her whenever you want, Blaise. You know that, right? It wouldn’t bother me,” Draco says, pausing in packaging the cores he gathered today - lion teeth and dragon scales and goat horns and hoof trimmings from chimaeras, eagle talons and feathers and lion tail hair from griffins, horse hair from hippocampuses, and lion claws and fur and scorpion stingers from manticores - to pass Pansy the photo of the baby dragon for her to send to Daphne.

“I know,” Blaise says. “The way I miss her, though….” He frowns. “I’m not sure I’d ever Apparate back here to finish the trip.” Draco looks at him. He hasn’t thought much about it, because it makes his own heart ache a little to do it, but the enormity of what Blaise has risked to be with Calliope weighs on him now, seeing how much Blaise loves her. There was a time, not too very long ago, that Blaise wouldn’t even admit that Ginny Weasley, who even Draco knew to objectively be the most attractive girl at Hogwarts, was pretty, and now he’s in love with a Muggle, and not even hiding it from his mother. Draco thought that he himself had come a long way, dating a Weasley and all, but somehow, when he wasn’t looking, Blaise had gone on ahead of him, as he so often did when they were children. 

He writes his weekly letters to his parents and to Meriweather to seal up and walks with Blaise down to the owl post office the next morning after breakfast. As they’re waiting to pay for their postage, he elbows Blaise in the side.

“Did you know that Purebloods traditionally choose unions that make their families angry?” he asks. Blaise raises his eyebrows, looking dubious.

“Is that a fact?” he says dryly.

“It is,” Draco confirms.

“And what of your parents?”

“Oh,” Draco snorts, “they were some of the biggest offenders of their generation. You see, the Blacks felt that the Malfoys weren’t pure enough, having an alleged history of ingratiating themselves with the non-magical community when it suited them, such as rubbing shoulders with high-class Muggles for the sake of building up their own fortune, for example, or aspiring to win the hand of the Muggle Queen Elizabeth I - which, obviously--”

“You can’t prove that,” Draco and Blaise say in unison, a practiced mantra learned well within the walls of the Malfoy Manor. Draco hides his grin.

“Exactly, yes. On the other hand, the Malfoys thought that the Blacks were, well, insane, which was, ah, considerably less impossible to prove,” he says. “Nevertheless, my father and mother were very much in love, head over heels, as the saying goes, absolutely mad for each other, and married despite the opposition of their families, resulting in wedding photos that show my grandparents on both sides looking extremely unenthused - really quite comical, Blaise, you must remind me to show you the album sometime.”

“Is there by any chance a relevant point to this topic of discussion, Draco, or did you simply wish to regale me with stories of your parents’ strange penchant for acts of rebellion that seem small but turn out to be extraordinarily meaningful?” Blaise asks, bored as ever, before letting his gaze slide to Draco’s face. “Not that I don’t appreciate the confirmation that you, Draco Malfoy, come honestly by your mild madness and skills at courting your way into Muggle society as would best benefit you.” Draco rolls his eyes.

“I’m only saying that you’re continuing a grand tradition,” he says, “and if you ever have doubts, then you can think of my parents, and not just because they _rebelled_ in their own way, as you put it, but also because you’re practically a son to them, too.” He ducks his head. “I just want to make sure you remember that.” He glances around, suddenly not wanting to look at Blaise, and also realizing how long they’ve been standing in the exact same spot in the queue. “Christ, why is this taking so long? Where’s the fucking--”

“Thank you, Draco,” Blaise says, returning the elbow jab. Draco smiles.

\---

Turkey brings an abundance of trees that they’ve never encountered before, and Draco is thrilled to end the European leg of their excursion by collecting branches of persian silk, dogwood, stone pine, judas, horse chestnut, cedar, ginkgo biloba, and Turkish sweetgum. He buys a string of ninety-nine beads in a Muggle shop to send to Auntie Shafiq and the ten of them sit on the floor and drink strong, hot coffee and watch dervishes whirl in beautiful white garments that rise in the air as they spin, making them appear as dancing flowers. 

\---

April begins, finding them in Morocco. Everyone except Draco wishes George a very happy birthday on the first, and when they all look at Draco expectantly, he shrugs, says, “We don’t celebrate it on the day.” He nixes the idea of a nice celebratory dinner before they can surprise George with it, and goes to bed early with a rather glum George instead, citing tiredness from wandering in the sun all day gathering evergreen and mastic and cork oak branches. The following morning, Draco arranges for a plate of George’s favorite breakfast food to be brought out as they’re all eating at the hotel. He openly kisses George as they travel, holds his hand throughout the day as they collect branches from jujube and argan trees, and takes them all out for a celebratory dinner where George eats chicken pastilla and groans because it’s so good. Draco says, “Happy second of April,” and then takes George to bed where he gifts him with an enchanted pinwheel that changes temperature with the wielder’s intentions. George gives him a sly look and presses his hand down on Draco’s shoulder, pushing him to his knees. Draco grins up at him, patient and wanting. 

In Egypt, Draco collects sycamore and tamarisk and acacia and eucalyptus wood. They meet a sphinx that makes Potter so jumpy that he and Ginny walk away from it. Blaise and Luna and George, together, puzzle out the riddle that the sphinx gives them, and in return, she offers hair from her tail to Draco for wandmaking, and tells him where to find local phoenixes that will freely give their feathers for use as a wand core.

The moment they Apparate to Mali, Blaise holds out his arms and says, “These are my people,” and more or less wanders off for the day while Draco and the others gather African custard apple, karira, and African mahogany branches. That evening in their hotel, as Longbottom pokes at a small fringed bladderwort that a local witch allowed him to uproot only after seeing his papers proving that he was a licensed and very skillful herbologist, Blaise returns looking very warm and pleased, having evidently spent the morning and afternoon tracing his father’s Moorish ancestors’ steps to a very small village where the wizards and witches fed him five servings of jollof rice and were ecstatic to meet someone they called “a lost son.” The next day, Blaise takes them round to some creature keepers and herbologists who he met during his own wanderings, and they’re happy to sell Draco runespoor egg shells, pink and orange fwooper feathers, clippings from rare West African water nymph plants, and spikes from streeler shells, once he explains his personal wandcraft methods. 

Draco gets more fwooper feathers - pink and orange and also yellow, this time - and streeler spikes in Nigeria, as well as kneazle whiskers and nganda coffee flowers, and after he gathers wood from light bossé, ube, and African corkwood trees along with Rogon daji vines, George stands next to him at a number of yohimbe trees, managing to successfully convince the bowtruckles to allow him to take some bark to use for making candies for the shop.

In Liberia, Draco collects branches from cecropia trees and more runespoor egg shells and streeler spikes. He gathers some wood from karsata trees and soap berry bushes in Ethiopia, and thinks he’s not going to get much in the way of cores until he overhears locals at a Wizarding diner talking about a nundu sighting in a neighboring town. They all end up tracking it - or, rather, rumors of its path - through the country and into Kenya, where Draco collects baobab branches as they follow word of the creature. The whole way, Luna and Granger and Pansy explain how dangerous nundus are, how their breath is so toxic that it can kill entire villages, how it takes one hundred wizards working together to be successfully subdued. Potter, Weasley, Longbottom, and Blaise keep asking why Draco is so intent on finding such a beast, but George, at least, is satisfied with Draco’s simple, unsure, “I’ve just got a feeling.”

They finally find the nundu in Tanzania, deep in a rainforest, sitting on a gigantic rock under the shade of a dense canopy. A huge leopard-like beast, it looks up when it hears them, and they freeze, terrified, holding their breath, but Draco tilts his head and squints, recognizes the look in its eyes, notices that its chest isn’t moving.

“It’s _sad_ ,” he says quietly. He points his wand at his own head. “Bubble-Head Charms. Now.” After they’ve all complied, Draco steps slowly forward, holds out his hand in a placating gesture. “It’s alright,” he says to the nundu. “You can breathe. We’re safe.” The nundu tilts its head, but Draco watches its chest begin to move, confirmation that it’s breathing, that it trusts him. “Good. Can I keep coming toward you?” The nundu nods slowly. 

“Draco--” Pansy squeaks from behind him. 

“It’s fine,” George murmurs. “Look. It trusts him. Me and a nundu can’t be wrong, eh, Ron?” Weasley gives a noncommittal grunt. 

“You’re lonely?” Draco asks the nundu, very close to it now, taking in its enormous size. From this close, he can see every touch of melancholy in the nundu’s big eyes, in the way its whole body droops. Draco can’t explain it, the strange kinship he feels for this animal, just like he can’t explain his affinity for the Devil’s Snare at home in his garden, but it’s there nonetheless, pushing him to bravery he wouldn’t otherwise possess. “I’ve been there,” he says softly. “People avoid you because of preconceived notions, yeah? Preconceived notions that might be correct, but still.” He reaches his hand out, pauses with it just before the creature’s yellow and black fur. He waits. “I don’t want to avoid you. I followed you across three countries, you know. I wanted to meet you.” 

The nundu stares at him for a long, silent moment, and then shifts so that it rubs its fur against Draco’s hand. It purrs. Draco smiles, strokes his hand through the fluffy fur, sees how happy the nundu looks. He hears Luna gasp behind him and turns to glance at his companions. George and Ginny are already walking slowly forward, but they give him a look, and he nods, looks back up at the nundu. 

“Can my friends come forward to meet you, too?” he asks. “They tracked you down with me. I promise they’ll be nice.” The nundu nods, and George and Ginny approach more quickly, eager to pet this giant, dangerous cat. The others come forward at a slower pace, but are happy when they get there still, to have this experience with such a legendary creature. At one point, the nundu turns over onto its back, and Granger laughs, delightedly scratching its belly. 

Draco wanted to find it for its fur, to try to use in wands, but now it feels rather like a mean thing to do, to befriend it like this and then collect some fur and be gone from it, leaving it lonely and sad yet again. He sits down next to the nundu and draws his wand, sees the way the nundu jerks it head toward him, brow tense.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says carefully. “Watch.” He waves his wand and a butterfly springs from it, circling the nundu’s head before landing on its nose. The nundu seems to laugh. Draco forms another and another, and flowers, too, that fall gently from the sky and land in the nundu’s fur. Not being naturally living things, being merely magnificent extensions of magic, they’re immune to the toxicity of the nundu’s breath. George, realizing what Draco is doing, conjures a house cat that the nundu sniffs at tentatively before the cat licks its face, surprising it for long enough that the cat snuggles up against the nundu’s chest, and the nundu settles a paw over it protectively.

“We can’t take it home with us, you know,” George says quietly to Draco. 

“I know,” Draco says, somewhat regretfully. “I feel bad, though, leaving it alone again.”

“She won’t be alone,” comes a new voice from the woods. Startled, Draco turns to see a woman barely older than him, her skin a golden hue of dark brown, wearing a large backpack, leaning against a tree, her head protected by her own Bubble-Head Charm. “I see you’ve found my dear Biftu.” The nundu’s demeanor changes entirely, happiness evident throughout its body, as soon as she lays eyes on the woman. The woman approaches and holds out her hand, a raw fish appearing by magic in her palm. The nundu - Biftu, Draco supposes that was her name - excitedly scarfs it down. The woman pets Biftu and smiles at Draco and his friends. 

“My name is Zufan,” she says, “and this is my nundu. She is a wanderer, but this is the first time I’ve lost her for so many days.” Zufan turns to the nundu and frowns, rubs the bubble around her head against Biftu’s fur. “It won’t happen again, Biftu, I promise you.”

“Well, I have to admit, this does make me feel less apprehensive about walking away from it--her--Biftu,” Draco says. Zufan turns back to him, one eyebrow raised, looking mildly amused at his stammering.

“Thank you for caring for her,” she says. “She’s so accustomed to being feared that sometimes I worry she may die of a broken heart. You’ve made her happy.” Then, she pulls her wand from her belt and conjures a large puppy of a dog breed that Draco doesn’t recognize. Biftu instantly begins playing with the puppy like she’s a dog, too. “Cats aren’t her favorite, though,” Zufan says. Draco laughs.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” he says.

Botswana brings leadwood and mopane and marula wood and horns of a tebo which occasionally become invisible. South Africa provides branches from camel thorn, white thorn, and sausage trees, as well as lime green fwooper feathers. In Madagascar, Draco collects wood from bottle trees and more from baobabs, as well as lemur claws, spines from a Madagascar ocotillo, and several fluffy diricawl feathers. Draco and George send Victoire’s birthday present - a stuffed diricawl that, like its real life form, is able to disappear and reappear somewhere else - with the fastest owl at the post office, with strict instructions to deliver it on the third, not the second. 

“Bill and Fleur’ll love that toy,” Potter says sarcastically. 

“All that _really_ matters is Victoire will,” George says. “Draco and me will be the _cool_ uncles.” Draco blushes immediately, his eyes widening as Weasley, Ginny, Potter, and Granger all stop suddenly and look up at Draco and George, who seems to realize too late what he’s said. “Ah.”

“That baby will be the _only_ person who thinks Draco’s cool,” Blaise says, not bothering to look up from his recently received letter from Calliope.

“How long until she realizes how wrong she is?” Pansy asks Blaise, tapping his arm repeatedly until he raises his hand to smack hers away, at which point she ceases abruptly. 

“It depends, Pans,” Blaise says. “Is she smart like her parents? Or does she get her intellect from _other_ family members? Certain uncles, perhaps? These are the questions we must ask ourselves.”

“I truly hate the two of you,” Draco says.

“Wait, what’s the shock here?” Longbottom says suddenly, looking confusedly at the Weasleys, Potter, and Granger. “Obviously it’s serious between Draco and George. Look what they’ve been through.”

“Besides, I don’t know about George, but Draco’s simply not the type to spend romantic time with someone he doesn’t see himself marrying,” says Pansy. Draco wants to die.

“Pansy,” he says through gritted teeth, “could you _please_ \--” 

“You see yourself marrying me, eh?” George says. Draco looks at him. He swallows, shrugs.

“I mean, after I’ve given myself to a _Weasley_ , who’s going to want me?” he says. George grins and pulls him into an eager, passionate kiss. Distantly, Draco hears Weasley make a disgusted noise.

“I love you,” George says, once he finally releases Draco. Draco stumbles backward a bit, rubs absentmindedly at his neck.

“I know,” he says. George smirks. 

\---

They spend the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts in Baghdad. Draco collects wood from date palm trees and purchases hairs from thestrals and faceless little demons called alûs. The keeper of the inn where they stay has a brother-in-law who owns a sirrush, and after examining the wand that Draco crafted for himself, he sells Draco its dragon scales, its eagle talons, the bull horns of its youth, and the forked viper tongue of its deceased sibling. They’re extremely rare, sirrushes, so Draco pays a rather heaping stack of gold, but the wizard who takes his money is friendly enough, and they’ve never experienced such hospitality as they do in Iraq, although the innkeeper and his wife tell him to expect that as they travel across the Middle East.

“Every person, rich or poor, will feed and lodge a stranger here,” they say, before handing Potter and Weasley bags and bags of dates and giving abayas to Granger, Ginny, Pansy, and Luna to wear for their journey to Saudi Arabia.

Draco is fairly eager to practice the few Arabic phrases he picked up from Auntie Shafiq throughout his childhood as they travel in this region. He exchanges _salaam_ s with everyone he passes on their way to gather wood from acacia trees in Abha. In Wizarding Riyadh, the ten of them perform the delicious custom of sitting and eating lamb kebabs and each drinking three cups of coffee with an entire family before Draco can inquire about buying rukh feathers from their son. 

In Lebanon, Draco collects more cedar than he can carry, and a witch in Tebnine sells him wool from the tail of a nesnas, and they eat more than their fill from plates of mezze at what seem to be all three meals of the day, during which Weasley becomes so enamored with hummus and baba ghanouj and kebbeh and sambusak that Granger asks their hostesses for the recipes. They board in a small Jewish Wizarding community in Syria, where Draco purchases fur from a werehyena and more rukh feathers and gathers branches from more trees than he expected - Turkish pine, Palestine oak, fir, Aleppo pine, and cypress. 

There are so many kinds of trees and plants in Iran that Draco and Longbottom both nearly weep with joy. It takes Draco three whole days to collect wood from pistachio, holly, silver birch, honeyberry, date-plum, Persian ironwood, quince, pomegranate, elm, and apricot trees as well as grape vines, and half of the group have to seek out his contact in Kharanaq so that Pansy and Luna can purchase karkadann horns and kneazle whiskers. Granger, who is convinced that karkadanns aren’t real (“It’s just a rhinoceros!” she insists in a loud whisper, to the great annoyance of locals who know better), stays with Draco’s half of the group. 

They arrive in a small town of southeastern Pakistan and the first thing Potter does is look around and say, “Wait, where exactly are we?”

“We’re in the Badin district of the Sindh state,” Draco answers, not looking at Potter. “More specifically, we’re in a town called Tando Bago.”

“But--my dad’s family--they’re from here,” Potter says anxiously. 

“Is that so?” Draco says, going to great effort to sound quite unaffected. “I suppose that makes sense. I believe your surname translates to _kumhar_. Perhaps there’s a group of your distant relatives somewhere round here.” 

Predictably, Potter ends up wandering off with Ginny, Weasley, and Granger, and when Draco turns around to ask if anyone else is hungry enough to get something to eat before venturing off for wandwood, George, Luna, Pansy, Longbottom, and Blaise are all staring at him with matching expressions of incredulity, bemusement, and pride. 

“ _What?_ ” he says angrily.

“That was a kind thing you did for Harry,” Luna says.

“Very kind,” Longbottom says.

“And very unnecessary,” Blaise points out.

“I didn’t do anything kind!” Draco snaps. “I just wanted to get him out of the way for these next couple of days. I only wanted a break from his incessant whining and self-righteousness!” 

“Mmhmm,” says Pansy. It’s obvious that none of them believe him. Draco scowls in frustration and turns back.

“I’m thinking we should have breakfast first,” he says decisively. “I could kill for some eggs and qeema at the moment.”

“Do they serve roti here, too?” George asks. “I’ve been dreaming about it ever since Auntie Shafiq’s.”

In the evening, after Potter returns to their inn looking extremely tan and emotional, and after George has eaten enough roti at breakfast, lunch, and dinner to satisfy him for the next month at least, and after Draco has collected branches from vann, white mangrove, drooping juniper, and neem trees and made plans to buy snake skins and occamy feathers, scales, and pure silver egg shells tomorrow, George sits next to him on the bed and nudges him in the shoulder.

“It’s alright to do nice things sometimes, you know,” George says. “Even for Harry.” Draco rolls his eyes.

“Don’t tell him it was on purpose. Please. I have a reputation to uphold,” he says. “Also, I made things even with him when I gave him that box of Snape’s collection of Lily Potter memorabilia. The last thing I need is for him to walk around thinking he _owes_ me. Merlin knows what rubbish he’d do then. It’d probably ruin my life, regardless.”

“Your secret is safe with me, you nutter,” George says. 

A few days later finds them in Mongolia, where they’re greeted and escorted throughout the country not by a human but by Nergϋi, a yarbogha - half-woman, half-bull, and considerably less rude and obnoxiously mysterious than centaurs. Nergϋi leads them to collect elm and Mongolian mine branches as well as fairy wings, zilant scales, and puffskein fur, and before they leave for China, she plucks a few of her own tail hairs to give to Draco on the condition that Draco will seriously consider reorienting his position on Wizarding Britain’s Wand Ban. “I’m aware of the blood that has been shed, and I am not requiring a change of mind, but I ask for you to simply think.”

In China, Draco buys more occamy egg shells and phoenix feathers. He gets branches from fir, ailanthus, Armand pine, Chinese witch hazel, Chinese Weeping Cypress, pink shower, persimmon, wood-apple, and ghost trees, and discovers that bowtruckles guarding bamboo forests lack both arms and legs. They travel down the bamboo to his hand by sliding on their brittle backs and apologetically communicate that they can’t allow Draco to take any wood. He nods and says, “Alright. No hard feelings,” and gives each one a few more treats before turning back.

Draco collects yew, Indian mahogany, muku, and Ta-khian wood in Vietnam, and they travel to the east, west, north, and south of the country for fins and hair from the beard of dragons, dragon scales and trimmings of hooves from the hybrid qilins, shed scutes from the black tortoises whose backs bear swords, and stag hair and feathers of swallows, fowl, and geese from the fenghuang. In Indonesia, Draco retrieves branches of teak, nipa palm, jasmine, titan arum, and the gorgeous rainbow gum eucalyptus trees. He goes to a Wizarding bazaar and buys hair from acromantulas, wings and stingers from billywigs imported from Australia, and rubies, sapphires, and emeralds from the jeweled shells of Fijian fire crabs. He and George buy bunches of Javanese edelweiss and send it all back to Calliope with a note that says, “Hope this still looks happy to meet you by the time this owl gets it to you. We miss you.”

\---

They plan to spend their first night in Japan with Pansy’s grandparents and great aunts and uncles in the island town of Naoshima in Kagawa, an exclusively magical prefecture. As they approach the house, Pansy says nervously, “They can’t exactly know about, you know, Luna and Neville and I, so there will have to be some improvising.”

“You mean lying,” Blaise says, “as we always do to your extended family.”

“And to your immediate family,” Draco adds dryly.

“Yes, thank you, so glad you understand,” Pansy says. As the door opens, she grabs Draco around the waist and he immediately puts his arm around her shoulders. Her family is thrilled to see them together.

“After so many years!” they exclaim. 

“So very many,” Blaise says. In the big scene of greetings, it’s easy for Draco to make stomping on Blaise’s foot seem like an accident.

Pansy’s family keeps asking about her involvement in “that nasty war over there in Britain,” and Pansy keeps explaining that she “mostly stayed out of the way,” which gets mixed reactions. Her grandparents look relieved that she prioritized her own safety, but a few of her aunts and uncles express their disappointment that she didn’t raise her wand to fight for the cause. At these words, Draco moves to roll down his sleeves, feeling caught and anxious, but then Pansy’s uncle points to Draco’s arm and says, “See? He had the good sense and courage to take a stand,” and Draco’s heart drops. He feels suddenly consumed with nausea. 

“I really didn’t,” he says, shaking his head.

“Nonsense. We know what that mark means,” says one of Pansy’s aunts. She looks disturbingly eager. “Did you kill any non-magic folk?”

“Yoshiko!” her grandmother says, scandalized. “Where do you get such horrible ideas? They don’t belong in our world, but they don’t need to be exterminated!” Draco leans against the wall and closes his eyes, tries to stave off his dizziness as the conversation devolves into a heated argument among Pansy’s relatives about the proper measures to take regarding the necessary demarcation of Muggles and Wizardkind. Pansy steps in front of Granger like the most petite sentinel and tries to respectfully ask that her family change the subject, and when that doesn’t work, she rather disrespectfully demands that they change their minds, and then she storms out, with Draco on her heels. 

Pansy apologizes to the rest of the group as they check into an inn in Marugame, clearly embarrassed, and Longbottom puts his arm around her waist and Luna says, “No one can help who they’re related to,” and once they’ve all gotten keys to their rooms, the three of them stay in theirs while Pansy has a delayed panic attack. Draco hovers outside the door, anxious over not being in there to help, until Blaise grabs him by the shoulders.

“She’s got other people in her corner now, Draco,” he says. “It’s not just you and me anymore. You have to let them be there for her.” It calms Draco down for the most part, but he still stands by the wall across from the door to the room Pansy’s sharing with Luna and Longbottom, rubs at the back of his neck, clenching and unclenching his fist. After two minutes of this, Blaise turns to George as George exits his and Draco’s room. “Can’t you distract him? He’s going to hurt himself if this continues.” George, only always up for the challenge of distracting Draco from his chronic worrying, immediately opens the door again and pulls Draco inside.

Draco spends the last few days of May collecting evergreen, Japanese apricot, sakura, and Japanese hop-hornbeam branches, and he’s pleased to find that the bowtruckles in these bamboo forests allow him to take some wood. He buys kappa scales and hoo-hoo feathers, antennae of mackled malaclaws and silky hair of demiguises. After they leave a last breakfast with Pansy’s cousins in Tokyo, who are much more open to the non-magical community than their parents and grandparents, they visit the Shimokita Peninsula at a request from Blaise, where he manages to get close enough to Japanese macaques to take several photos for Calliope, who loves them, and Draco climbs half a dozen Japanese beech trees to greet their shy bowtruckles. The trees shake out their branches while Draco is still sitting high in them. Everyone left on the ground below scrambles to guard their heads with the umbrella charm and gives Draco a mean look when it’s over. Draco thinks it’s worth it, though.

\---

Draco knows from the very first moment after they Apparate to Mexico that it’s going to be too hot and humid in their journey through Central and South America for him to wear his usual long-sleeve button-ups. He dithers over what to do about it and finally accepts that he has no real choice. In Wizarding Mexico City, he enters a clothing shop and exits wearing a vest and holding a shopping bag full of a dozen others. He pushes his newly purchased sunglasses down his nose to glares at George over the frames and says, “I don’t want to hear a word of it.”

“Oh, no, of course not, not a word at all,” George says, choking back a laugh. Weasley and Potter don’t bother choking back theirs.

“Merlin, you’re pale,” Ginny says, honestly aghast. “Like, nearly translucent.” Draco sighs. 

“A novel observation, indeed,” Draco says dryly. 

“I take it you don’t tan,” says Longbottom, crossing his arms over his chest and showing off his own tanned muscles. Draco scowls. Blaise and Pansy burst into laughter.

“How red does he get?” Granger asks, an amused look on her face. 

“I _don’t_ get red because I take my skincare regimen _very seriously_ , including protecting it from harmful exposure to the sunlight,” Draco snaps.

“So I get to rub you down with Defense Against the Light Rays potion every morning for the next month then?” George asks, waggling his eyebrows.

“And reapply every two hours,” Draco says, reaching into one of his shopping bags to pull out a bottle and toss it to George, who gives him a smirk.

“Ugh,” Weasley says, suddenly seeing the situation as extremely less funny. “How do you _always_ find a way to take every moment of me enjoying a go at you and turn it into something gross with my brother?”

“Us cunning folk use any means to achieve, et cetera, et cetera,” Draco says, in a deeply bored tone. He glances around. “Where’s Luna?”

“I’m right here,” says Luna, appearing from the shop next door wearing a sea green sundress that looks beautiful against her tawny-olive skin. With her new clothes and messy blonde hair, she looks like any other young woman visiting Mexico on vacation with a mind to quit her job and move here permanently instead. She raises her sunglasses and looks Draco up and down with some concern. “Draco, are you feeling alright? You look like you might be ill.”

“Thank you, Luna,” Draco says with a resigned sigh as the snickering picks up again, “but no, I always look this way.”

\---

Over the next four days, Draco collects wood from avocado, soncoya, and sandpaper trees and teeth from a dugbog and fur from a ahuizotl in Mexico, and in Honduras, wood from capulin blanco and spine-root pines as well as fur from white cadejos. When they reach Costa Rica on the morning on Draco’s birthday, the witch checking them in at their hotel hears his name and says, “Oh, it’s you!”

“It’s me,” Draco says uncomfortably, wondering if the Malfoy name made such a significant impression in Britain that its reputation is already ruined in Central America. But the witch disappears behind the counter for a moment and then reappears holding out two large packages.

“These arrived yesterday for you,” the witch says. She glances at the card on top of one of the parcels and smiles at him. “ _Feliz cumpleaños!_ ” 

“ _Muchas gracias_ ,” he says, inwardly cringing as the words come out. They’ve been traveling under translation spells, but Blaise has nonetheless managed to pick up the different dialects of Spanish quite quickly, while Draco clunks awkwardly through it, which is, he assumes, what he gets for never learning Italian. He gives the woman behind the counter a grimace as he takes the packages.

They’re from his mother and father, of course. A heaping bag of Draco’s favorite sweets and a handsome mahogany watch box full of timepieces, some brand new and some antique and at least one looking every bit like it was once for sale at Borgin and Burkes. Draco holds it up to the light, standing at the window of the room he’s sharing with George in their group’s large suite, and squints at it, trying to determine what, if anything, makes it Dark. In the end, he shakes his head and puts it back in the box, replaces the watch he’s been wearing for the past few months with a newer one from the case instead.

He spends the day gathering branches from cabralea, yagrumo macho, genipapo, and casimiroa trees and purchasing more cadejo fur - black, this time, for here they believe that the white cadejos are the evil ones. Blaise and Pansy treat everyone to a birthday dinner of tamales and fried plantains and _fresco de cas_. He receives gifts from everyone except for George.

“Even Weasley, Potter, and Ginny offered up their meager presents,” Blaise says pointedly. “You’ve not even wished him a happy birthday.” George shrugs. 

“We don’t celebrate it on the day,” he says. The next day, George pins Draco against the wall in the main room of the suite before they all leave for breakfast and kisses him until they’re both out of breath. “Happy sixth of June,” he says, loud enough for all of the others to hear, and Draco can’t look at them all through the walk to the restaurant at the corner and the meal.

George’s gift to Draco is rather brilliant. They heard all day yesterday about _carreta sin bueyes_ \- the cart without oxen. The stories vary from one community to the next. In some cases, it seems that the wagon appears outside of homes whose inhabitants have become greedy and miserable, as a warning to change their behavior. In others, it is seen to announce approaching misfortune, a bad omen of more bad omens to come. In one small town, it is said that the soul of a person who sees the cart and dies remains trapped in the cart, doomed to roam the streets for eternity. What is steadfast, though, is that a wagon wanders the roads from city to town to city again on its own, its yoke empty.

Eight of them spent the entire afternoon arguing about the secret of it.

“It’s like the Grim,” Weasley said. “A bad omen, remember?”

“No, it’s obviously being pulled by something like a Dementor,” Longbottom said. 

“They don’t have Dementors here, Neville,” Granger said.

“So a Lethifold then,” Luna said.

“I don’t know,” Potter said. “I think Ron might be right.”

“It steals people’s souls, Harry. That’s a Dementor,” said Ginny.

“They don’t _have_ \--”

“That was the story of _one_ town,” said Pansy. “Plenty more said it was just a warning.”

“In which case - and you all know how very much it _pains_ me to agree with Weasley - but it would indeed be somewhat like the Grim,” Blaise said. “It’s a warning to shape up or face the consequences of bad behavior.”

“And if you don’t,” Weasley said, dragging his finger across his throat, “you die and your soul gets carted around forever as a warning to everyone else to not end up like you.”

“Eloquently put, as ever,” Blaise said dryly.

“But there was never any follow-up to that in those towns’ stories,” Granger said, “or any lead-up in the others ones! Look, _every person_ it appears to as a warning can’t possibly have changed their behavior enough to save their souls, right? It’s just not realistic. But did any of them die? And the ones who _did_ die after seeing the cart - there was never an account of it appearing to them beforehand. It doesn’t make sense.”

“So what is it then?” Weasley asked, annoyed.

“It _has_ to be something like a Lethifold,” Granger said, which was around when Draco stopped listening and started daydreaming about the sweets on his hotel bed and the watch from Borgin and Burkes. 

George was silent throughout that argument yesterday, too, but he figured it out, at some point, and today he leads them all to a small sanctuary for magical creatures, where there’s an entire pen holding carts, very much with oxen. 

“But these aren’t _sin bueyes_ , George,” Granger says, her brow furrowed. “They’re clearly visible.”

“They’re like _thestrals_ ,” Draco says, amazed, barely resisting slapping his palm to his forehead. George nods excitedly.

“Not the Grim, not Dementors, not Lethifolds,” he says. “Everyone who told us about them yesterday said that _they_ saw a cart and then someone in their lives died. Well, they wouldn’t be able to see the oxen _before_ the death, would they?”

“I only started seeing the thestrals pulling the carriages at Hogwarts after Cedric died,” Potter says, wide-eyed realization dawning on his face. 

“But what of people who _have_ seen death?” Longbottom says. “They’d still be able to see the cart.”

“But they’d see the oxen, too,” Luna says, smiling as she approaches one. 

“So they wouldn’t even think they’re seeing _carreta sin bueyes_ ,” Blaise says.

“It would just be a normal cart to them,” says Ginny.

“You’re brilliant, you are,” Draco says, pulling George into a kiss. George blushes when Draco pulls away.

“I figured you might be able to get some hair from them, too, to use for wand cores,” he says. Draco does manage to convince the cart keeper to let him have some oxen hair, although he refuses to accept Draco’s money for them. They have the afternoon free, then, and as they’re standing around in the street after lunch, discussing their options, Draco spies a tattoo parlor. They’re on a Muggle road, but Draco can tell it’s a magical establishment by its odd shape: extremely tall but very narrow, fit precisely between two other businesses in what Draco assumes that Muggles view as an alley. He watches as two children on bicycles ride by it, make like they’re going to turn and ride through the door - _down the alley_ , Draco thinks - before evidently changing their minds and turning away. _Protective enchantments, then. Muggle-Repelling._

He takes George by the elbow. “Spend the afternoon with me?” he asks.

“Obviously,” George says. “It’s the sixth of June.” Draco nods.

“Good,” he says quietly, slipping his hand into George’s. “I’m going to get a tattoo.”

“ _Really?_ ” says George, a mischievous gleam sparking in his eyes as they widen. Draco walks away from the group without another word, pulling George along to the tattoo parlor. As they get closer, the name on the window shifts from _La Dulce Pluma_ to _The Sweet Quill_.

Inside, an older dark-skinned woman with braids and numerous facial piercings sits Draco down, and two hours later he exits the shop with a bandage on his left inner forearm and George at his side. He takes the bandage off before dinner, carefully and gently rubs the special potion the witch sold him over the new markings on his skin. He’ll have to keep it bandaged throughout the day for the next week to protect it from sun damage, but this potion soothes the itching at least. The others are late for dinner, coming back from the beach or the rainforest, but they all do double takes when they catch sight of the new black and silver ink on Draco’s pale skin, and ask to see it.

It’s a dwarf beech tree, the exact one currently growing in a forest in France that gave Draco its wood so that he could get his magic back. It’s black ink, mostly, with some gray shading, based on a sketch of the tree that’s been in Draco’s journal ever since that trip to Verzy. The artist added silver as well, to the places where the light would hit the leaves and branches, and the tree’s leaves sway as if caught in a light breeze. It spans the width of the inner side of his forearm, the crooked trunk and gnarled branches twisting across the white of his skin.

It covers his faded Dark Mark. 

He wasn’t sure, at first, if that’s what he wanted when the artist asked him. There’s a part of him, still, that thinks he deserves to see it every day, to feel that moment of crushing guilt, to be constantly reminded of his decision. It’s the part of him that Meriweather says is what gives him so much trouble. “You’re really much more lawful than anyone would think,” she told him once. “There’s right and there’s wrong for you, rules and consequences. You were a Death Eater who survived the war, didn’t lose any family members, and didn’t go to Azkaban. No one else punished you, so you’ve been punishing yourself.” It made sense enough to Draco after he had time to work through it on his own, get at the root of what makes him feel like he’s suffocating sometimes, even now. 

But the artist said, “I can cover up that old one if you want. It’s all discolored anyway. What do you think?” 

And Draco looked at the Dark Mark on his arm, now faded to a glistening white and hardly visible, and hesitated. He thought of Snape, who died with this mark still burning black on his skin, despite working against it for over sixteen years. He thought of his father, whose mark was white throughout Draco’s childhood, who always told Draco to never take any power that was offered to him if it came with strings, who became so anxious over the ink becoming darker after the Quidditch World Cup that Draco was sent away from the Manor for a week so that his parents could discuss a plan of action. He thought of his mother, who never took the Mark, who suffered such anguish over it, over what it demanded of her husband, of her son, of her, over what it did to all of them. He thought of that night on the tower, pitching a glittering skull and snake in the sky and waiting for Dumbledore to return, the escape that was offered to him with no strings, the opportunity that he didn’t take.

He looked at the sketch of the beech tree, too, and back to his arm.

“Can you make it so the tree roots are inside the skull?” he asked, and when she said that yes, of course she could, he glanced over to George sitting next to him, eyebrows raised. 

“Something good from something bad,” said Draco. George hummed, and held Draco’s hand as the wand tip began creating indentations in his skin to swirl the ink into later.

“Nothing comes from nothing,” George said, humming a familiar melody.

\---

In Brazil, Draco collects wood from palm, bacuri, rubber, caiboti, and giant sensitive trees. They buy teeth from minhocãos, fiery eyeballs of boi-tatás, and go to a freshwater mermaid selling locks of her own hair. When Ginny asks her why, she shrugs and says, “To meet new people, of course.” They encounter a wizard in Chile who has tamed a family of peuchens - flying snakes that make whistling sounds as they hurl through the air and function similarly to basilisks - and Draco buys scales and wings from him, adamantly not looking further into his house. He gathers soap bark, Chilean plum yew, and monkey tail branches, and becomes rather entranced by the beautiful metallic shine of a tree full of alicantos, who each fly down and give him one of their luminous feathers. 

Draco reluctantly purchases bakru hair in Ecuador, although he’s still uncertain about using it in wandmaking, and collects guava, Honduran mahogany, and capirona wood. Colombia provides branches from wax palm, bulletwood, and pochote trees, as well as feathers of a _pollo maligno_ , a name that so amuses Blaise that he has to walk away from the transaction to avoid disrupting the sale with his laughter. 

In Venezuela, Draco gathers yopo, frijol mompás, and peanut butter fruit tree branches. They sit in a field at night and watch a little herd of mooncalves dancing under the light of the full moon. The mooncalves, shy but friendly, get close enough to them that they’re able to reach out and pet their soft fur, much to Luna and Pansy’s utter delight. Draco has to admit, as he carefully shakes his hand free of the short gray hairs into a jar before closing and labelling it, that they are quite cute, in all their strange ugliness. After the mooncalves have wandered off again, Longbottom produces several jars of his own, handing one of each of them and saying, “We’ve got to harvest the dung before the sun rises.” He explains, at their cries of indignation and refusal, that it’s the best natural fertilizer for magical plants, and then he threatens to let the Devil’s Snare at Spinner’s End die if Draco doesn’t help, which is _rude_ and very likely a lie, but Draco doesn’t feel up to taking a chance.

On the island of Puerto Rico, Draco collects wood from silk-cotton, mamey, and royal poinciana trees, and buys teeth of chupacabras, a creature that George takes one look at and says, in a low and foreboding voice, “ _Wicked._ ” Draco stands guard awkwardly as George buys chupacabra venom - “It’s how it paralyzes its victims,” a local witch explained, “but of course, _Muggles_ don’t know that” - from a dealer to experiment with for the shop.

“What are you going to do with that, then?” Draco asks as they’re walking back to the inn.

“No idea,” George says happily, holding up one of the seven purchased vials of it in front of his face and narrowing his eyes, considering.

“Put it away,” Draco whispers, glancing around nervously.

“Alright, alright, calm down, darling,” George says, stowing it away in his coat pocket before grabbing Draco’s hand. 

“You’re going to get into trouble one day,” Draco says, as annoyed as he can sound when his irritation is already ebbing at George’s touch.

“Oh, most undoubtedly,” George says with a smile, “and _you’re_ going to bail me out.” Draco sighs.

“Most undoubtedly.”

In Barbados, all of them are so spooked by the idea of getting attacked by a Lethifold in the midst of their slumber that they hardly sleep on the first night there, but the next morning, Draco, intrigued by possibilities for what it could mean for wand cores, buys several torn scraps of the cloaks of Lethifolds from a capable and intimidating witch, and something about the purchase makes them all feel a bit more invincible. After Draco collects giant bearded fig, clammy cherry, and sandbox tree wood, they Apparate to Floreana, one of the Galápagos Islands, where Draco gathers ashwinder eggs and some scalesia tree branches. They spend the last day of June among Muggle tourists, walking through the national parks across the Islands and gazing in wonder at the wildlife, the marine iguanas and huge tortoises and tropical penguins and odd, adorable sea lions. 

“Only one month left,” Pansy says as they sit down for dinner. She sounds almost wistful, but Draco dares not mention it to her. 

“And only one very large country,” Blaise says.

“Are you _sure_ we can get through all the states in just thirty-one days, Hermione? There are fifty of them, you know,” Weasley says.

“Malfoy and I planned it all extensively,” Granger says. “We’ll be fine. Definitely a very tight schedule, but it’s doable nonetheless.”

“Besides, the enchanted car I’ve rented can Apparate with us,” Draco says, taking a menu from a waitress.

“The _what_?!” Granger exclaims. Draco grins behind his menu.


	16. Chapter 16

“It can speed along without detection like the Knight Bus, it can Apparate with us in a pinch, and the sound system picks up both Wizarding _and_ Muggle radio stations,” Draco says proudly as the ten of them stand gazing at the black Ford Explorer XLT that he’s just signed the paperwork to rent for the next month. “And the _best_ part is that I do not need a license to drive it! It basically does all the work for me.”

“You are absolutely mental if you think I’m getting in that car with you behind the wheel,” Weasley says adamantly. 

“Why’s it so _big_?” Potter says.

“It’s _America_ , Potter,” says Pansy, rolling her eyes. 

“Yeah, best get used to it now, mate,” Longbottom says. “Everything’s bigger than necessary here.” Granger approaches the car and opens the door, peeks inside. Draco hears her humming in contemplation.

“Sickle for your thoughts, Granger?” he says, amused. He knows exactly how this will end and Weasley won’t like it.

“It’s quite roomy,” Granger says. “Eight seats to start with...I mean, all of us could probably fit comfortably even without the expanding enchantments.” 

“Hermione, you’re not _actually_ considering this?!” Weasley exclaims. Blaise opens a door on the opposite side from Granger and slides into a seat, looking around at the interior. 

“Not bad,” he says, “although I can’t believe I’ll be going on a roadtrip across the States with you lot before I go with Calliope.”

“We’ll bring her next time,” Draco says easily. Luna approaches the car and Blaise moves into the next seat to make room for her to climb inside. She turns back to Pansy and Longbottom.

“We’ve never travelled through America by car before,” she says with a smile. 

“Well, that means I’m in,” Longbottom says, sounding fondly resigned. 

“And me as well,” Pansy says, matching Longbottom’s tone. Luna grins and blows a kiss at them.

“I can’t believe this,” Weasley says, astonished. He turns toward Pansy and Longbottom with an accusing finger held out toward them. “You two are so easy for Luna!”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Longbottom says with a nod, completely unabashed.

“Yeah, where have you been?” Pansy says, rolling her eyes again, speaking to Weasley like she used to speak to Crabbe, Goyle, and Marcus Flint.

“ _Frankly_ , it’s odd that you _aren’t_ , Weasley,” Blaise says, leaning forward to glare at Weasley from the car. Weasley stares back at him in befuddlement. Ginny turns to Potter and puts her hands around his arm.

“It could be fun,” she says. “Hermione seems to trust it. And anyway, Malfoy’s not going to do anything dangerous with George in the car.” Potter grimaces, looks at Ginny for a long moment, and sighs.

“Right,” he says. “I suppose we’re in, too, then.”

“Am I going round the twist or something?!” Weasley cries, throwing his hands in the air. “Hermione, please, _please_ , tell them why this is a terrible idea.” Granger turns toward him, visibly cringing. He lets out a wild yowl and drags his hands over his face.

“George, you’ve been quiet,” Draco says, nudging George’s foot with his own. George looks at him, grinning mischievously.

“This really is going to be like those Great American Road Trip films we’ve watched with Calliope, isn’t it?” he asks. Draco smiles.

“That was more or less the idea, yeah,” he says. George nods, bites his lip.

“And I get to sit in the passenger seat and hold your hand while you drive, yes?” 

“ _That_ was more or less the appeal, yeah,” Draco says, fully grinning now. George returns his smile. On Draco’s other side, Weasley groans dramatically, recognizing his defeat.

“ _Fine!_ ” he yells. “Fine. God! Unbe _liev_ able!”

“My goodness, Weasley, you’re really laying it on thick here,” Draco says, giving Weasley a pleasant smile. Weasley spins around to face him, eyes bulging.

“Don’t you--”

“Oh, Ron, come and decide where we should sit,” Hermione calls, her tone innocent. Weasley sighs. 

“We’re not finished,” he snaps at Draco before walking over to the car, Ginny and Potter following closely behind. Draco snickers and pulls the car keys from his pocket. He looks at George, who’s smiling still and shaking his head. 

“I can put my hand on your knee, too, if you’d like,” Draco says. George laughs and pulls Draco close for a kiss. 

“Oi!” shouts Weasley. Several loud thuds and angry swearing cause Draco and George to pull away and look toward the car again. Weasley is leaning over the driver’s seat from the car’s middle row of seats, cradling his fist, looking pained. “Why’s the bloody horn not working? You got us a defective car, Malfoy!” Draco sighs loudly.

“The car has to be _on_ for the horn to work, Weasley,” Draco says with a great roll of his eyes, starting a slow walk to the car, still holding George’s hand. “Now please _do_ sit down and buckle your damn safety belt so we can get going.”

\---

They make it through three states in one day. Eastern white pine, balsam fir, and doxy teeth in Maine. Barberry, weeping willow, and shrake spines in New Hampshire. Sugar maple, eastern hemlock, and teeth from the creature that lurks in Lake Champlain in Vermont. They begin the morning of the second by visiting the Salem Witches’ Institute in Massachusetts, an all-girls boarding school for the magical education of young witches built next to the grounds of the Salem Witch Trials, where the principal introduces him to the instructor of World History of Magic, who speaks very rapidly and with such a thick accent that Draco can barely understand her as she shows them around the town. 

“Where are you from, exactly?” Draco asks as the bowtruckles of a black cherry tree climb down to his hand.

“Boston,” Juniper answers with enthusiasm. “Why? Can you tell?” She snorts with laughter. Blaise pinches the bridge of his nose and wanders off. 

“And does everyone in Boston have your delightful accent, darling?” Draco says, his mouth full of a charming tongue and clenched teeth. 

They do, as it turns out, but the grating effect of Bostonian witches and wizards’ accents is tempered somewhat by the red cedar wood and hidebehind hair that Draco obtains during their short time in the city. The plan then, after getting trembling aspen and sweet pepperbush branches as well as more doxy teeth just past the border into Rhode Island, is to stop for a late lunch somewhere before exiting the state, but before they even realize, they’re driving past a big blue sign welcoming them into Connecticut. They eat lunch, they collect more shrake spines and branches from birch and pignut hickory trees, and then they drive into New York and get to their inn just as everyone is getting hungry for dinner. 

They get a few pizzas from from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near their Times Square hotel and Apparate to Central Park, where they sit on benches and the grass to eat as the sun sets. Draco retrieves a knife and the wand he was working on last night from his bag and continues where he left off before with whittling it down. This one is made of palm, from Indonesia, and it’s looking like it will be about ten and a quarter inches.

“How do you choose the length?” Blaise asks from the bench behind Draco, casually Vanishing a napkin in his hand. 

“I don’t,” Draco says, twisting the knife just so to smooth out a curve at the handle. “The wand wood decides.”

“Really?” Pansy asks, curious. “The wand chooses _every_ step?”

“It seems to,” Draco says. He holds the wand up in front of his face and narrows his eyes, spinning it between his fingers, analyzing it from every angle. George, beside him on the grass, leans back on his elbows and looks up at him.

“That phallic symbol looks great in your hands, babe,” he says with an exaggerated wink. Draco rolls his eyes.

“You know, I never really thought about it, but technically, we all wield phallic symbols every day, don’t we?” Longbottom says thoughtfully.

“But Draco does a _lot_ ,” George says. “I mean, _a lot_. Caresses it, crafts it lovingly in his hands--” Blaise snorts.

“I’ll take this knife to _your_ phallic symbol if you keep on like this,” Draco says, beginning to carve a pattern of roses round the handle. George laughs.

“You know I’ve got significantly more than just a symbol, love,” he says, “and you’re very good at handling that as w-- _Oi!_ ” Draco looks up to see George’s face dripping water. He glances back at the bench next to Blaise’s, sees a triumphant-looking Ginny, and decides to go back to the wand and let the Weasleys have it out, hoping that the Statute of Secrecy doesn’t get broken in the meantime.

The next morning, they meet a wizard in the city who lives in an underground magical society that’s literally underground. He sells Draco teeth from sewer alligators and smells vaguely noxious. The witch selling teeth from Montauk monsters has a more pleasant odor, at least, if a bit overbearing, although Draco does suspect that it’s because she’s compensating. They return to Central Park and Draco steals a jumpsuit from a Central Park Conservancy crew member’s truck in order to avoid any problems while collecting branches from honey-locust trees. They drive northwest to a very small all-Wizarding town called Butternuts where Draco gathers wood from butternut trees, and then they continue travelling upstate for a few hours simply to appreciate the beauty of the scenery before driving back down toward Pennsylvania.

Draco realizes that they’ve made a mistake in their itinerary as soon as he walks out of their Philadelphia hotel after breakfast on the fourth of July. The entire city is spangled with red, white, and blue stripes and stars, and the Muggles aren’t the only ones celebrating their country’s independence from Draco’s. They duck into a small, nondescript building and find themselves in the audience of a reenactment of a debate from the Magical Continental Congress. It’s evidently well known among the wizards and witches in the area - Draco notices that even children no older than eight are mouthing along with the words delivered by the six people on stage. 

“Psst,” Weasley hisses, and nudges Draco with a little flyer that he must have summoned from someone’s purse. Draco takes it, blinks through the continued visual assault of all the red and white and blue, and reads:

_REMEMBER THE MAGICAL CONTINENTAL CONGRESS_

_IT IS JULY 4th, 1777_

_INDEPENDENCE HAS BEEN DECLARED! THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR HAS BEGUN!_

_SHOULD WE HELP OUR MUGGLE COUNTRYMEN IN THEIR FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE? WHAT DO WE RISK? WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN WE MAKE? IS THIS EVEN OUR FIGHT?_

_COUNTRY OR KIND?_

_WATCH THE 162nd ANNUAL DEBATE REENACTMENT_  
_JULY 4th, 2001_  
_LIBERTY HALL_  
_FREEDOM AND FRIENDSHIP STAGE_  
_8:30 - 3:00_

_FEATURING THE 100th AND FINAL PERFORMANCE OF BALTHASSAR “BALTO” SKINKER AS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN_

“Merlin’s pants,” Granger whispers.

“Don’t say ‘Merlin’ here,” George says warily.

“Right,” Draco says, carefully placing the flyer in his bag. It’s melodramatic as all hell, of course, but who can appreciate that more than him? At the very least, it will make a good memento for this trip. “Let’s sneak out of here and then get out of the city. I can find tulip poplar and black gum trees anywhere here. We have to head for Lake Erie anyway.”

What takes Muggle over six hours only takes them three. They obtain teeth from the Lake Erie Cow Monsters - “Are magical creatures in this country just called ‘Insert-Name-of-Place Monsters?’” Potter asks, grievously confused, and Pansy, Longbottom, and Luna are quick to confirm the questionable naming conventions - and Draco gathers branches. On their drive back, they stop at the Allegheny National Forest where Draco buys whiskers of squonks, sad animals with heavily blemished and ill-fitting skin that hide from sight and spend much of their time weeping due to shame over their ugly appearance, capable of dissolving into a pool of tears to evade capture by humans.

It’s early evening when they return to Philadelphia. They join the crowd waiting for darkness to fall and watch the fireworks show. Bursts of red, white, and blue appear in the sky above them, clearly enhanced with magic by sneaky witches and wizards employed by the city’s Muggle government. A great firework flag dances overheard with thirteen stars in a circle in the corner before two more are added and the formation changed to five rows of three. The number of stars continues to grow until it reaches fifty, at which point it soars higher into the sky as more fireworks explode around it, the crowd cheering at a deafening volume. It’s beautiful, really, and Draco nearly gets swept up in the spirit of it all. By the time the show ends and the throng begins dispersing, he’s about ready to damn England, too, until George takes his hand and squeezes.

\---

The next day’s plan has them driving through three states again. In New Jersey, Draco collects northern red oak and silver bell branches and the claws, horns, and hoof trimmings of Jersey Devils. In Rhode Island, while Potter talks Ginny out of buying a knarl to keep as a pet, Draco purchases knarl quills and later gathers wood from American basswood and sassafras trees. In Maryland, a beautiful witch with four children running around her feet sells Draco feathers and razor sharp teeth of a snallygaster, and he visits the bowtruckles living in sweet gums and eastern redbuds whose trees are very generous. 

In West Virginia the following day, they meet two Appalachian wizards who could probably very easily kill all ten of them with their bare hands but graciously do not. Instead, Silas and Jethro serve them a breakfast of grits, fried squirrel, and sausage made from a wild boar they killed last week on the wooded land behind their house. They lead everyone around the mountains and watch in fascination as Draco collects wood from red maple and common pawpaw trees, and then they take him to the home of one of their neighbors, as much as someone can be a neighbor when living two miles away, who makes her living hunting Mothmen and is delighted to sell Draco bits of wings for wandmaking. Sudie and Jethro and Silas are so talkative that they don’t get back on the road until the afternoon, so their excursion into Virginia is fairly short, just long enough for Draco to gather pitch pine and black willow branches and purchase the shed skins of joint snakes before the sun goes down as they drive into North Carolina to check into their hotel.

Draco is awake at 7 in the morning, as he always is and has been, faithfully, every single morning of this entire journey. He’s not sure how his body has known to adjust for timezone differences along the way, but he’s thankful for it. It allows him to get ready for the day before everyone else so that _he’s_ never the one keeping the whole group waiting. It also means that he usually has some blessed time alone before the others begin stirring, space to clear his head and breathe the tension from his shoulders. 

Sometimes, though, Potter also wakes at 7. It’s only ever Potter, looking tired still and incredibly anxious. It didn’t take Draco long to figure out that it’s because of nightmares. _Obviously_ , Potter has nightmares; Draco doesn’t need to share a room with him to know that much. He never asks, though, knows that he, personally, would rather drop dead on the spot than have _Potter_ ask _him_ about _his_ nightmares, so he considers this avoidance of the topic to be a favor. In fact, aside from the first morning during which a very short, terse exchange of words was had, the two of them don’t talk at all during these mornings when it’s just them, awake and showered and dressed and afflicted.

Today, though, after Draco swears for seven minutes under his breath about not being able to get a good cup of tea in this blasted country, and how could he ever think for even a moment that he could loose the chains of his beloved native home when she is, after all, the mother of good tea, Potter clears his throat and says, “I believe it was stolen from my dad’s people, actually.” Draco stops in his tracks and looks up at Potter. “The tea, I mean,” Potter says. “Britain stole it.”

“I know, Potter,” Draco says blankly. “Britain stole everything, if Blaise is to be believed, which he very likely should be.” Potter hums and looks back down at his hands. Draco wonders, not for the first time, if Potter has ever seen a therapist. Potter _should_ , perhaps more than anyone else, see a therapist. Fuck if Draco’s going to bring it up, though.

“Potter, why do you want to be an Auror?” he blurts out instead. He regrets it immediately. Potter’s head whips back up and he stares wide-eyed and uncomfortable at Draco, who takes a deep breathe. _In for a knut, and all that_ , he thinks. “Didn’t you get quite more than your fair share of all this _saving people_ stuff from age eleven to age eighteen? Hasn’t your life been marred more than enough by attacks and defense and danger?” Potter looks at him, green eyes piercing from his brown face, and is silent for a few moments. Draco is about to snap at him to forget that Draco ever said anything, but then Potter opens his mouth.

“I’ve thought about doing something else,” he says quietly. “The thing is, I just don’t think I could do anything else and live with myself. Yeah, I’ve been marked--”

“I said ‘marred,’” Draco says, on reflex.

“Whatever, Malfoy, yeah,” Potter says with a roll of his eyes. “But I don’t want anyone else’s life to be _marred_ \--” he gives Draco a very brief glare, “--like mine was. If I can make things better, even in the smallest way, I want to do it. And--ugh. Look, I don’t want to hear it from you about this, alright, you _asked me_ \- I feel like I was...chosen.” 

He cringes and rolls his eyes again, then grits his teeth. “Trauma chose me.” Draco blinks in surprise at Potter’s word usage. Perhaps he’s been seeing a therapist, after all. “It took from me, but it also gave me a gift. I can’t just...not use it.” Draco nods slowly. 

“Fair enough,” he says, tucking away the realization that he can relate to Potter in this regard for safekeeping, to take out later and glare at it when he’s in a particularly foul mood.

“Why do you want to be a wandmaker?” Potter asks. Draco furrows his brow slightly. “You made your own wand, I mean. You got your magic back. Why make it a career?” Draco bites the inside of his cheek and thinks, _I was chosen. It took from me but it also gave me a gift. I can’t just not use it._

He shrugs. “I don’t know if I could live with myself if I did anything else,” he says simply, in a lazy tone that could be mocking. The way Potter nods, though, makes Draco think that he sees through it.

\---

In North Carolina, Draco collects branches of crape myrtles and longleaf pines and buys cougar fur and hoop snake skin. In South Carolina, it’s scales of the alleged Lizard Men of Scape Ore Swamp and wood from red mulberry trees and kudzu vines. In Georgia, he gathers sugarberry and yellowwood branches and purchases teeth from Altamaha-has. 

In North Carolina, he tries sweet tea and discovers that, despite everything, he loves it. In South Carolina, he drinks his weight in it, downs glass after glass at every meal and even buys bottles of it from corner shops to drink on the drive. In Georgia, he drinks a whole pitcher of it at a restaurant and then pulls the car over half an hour later to vomit on the side of the road in the southern summer heat. 

“So, no more sweet tea, then?” Longbottom asks when Draco gets back into the car, feeling and looking miserable.

“Don’t ever speak to me about that abominable beverage again,” Draco says. 

No more sweet tea, then.

\---

Florida is a strange place. 

None of them can shake the impression that the whole state itself is magical, but...perhaps in a bad way. Nothing about it _feels_ magical in the familiar way, but it’s not… _not-magical_ here. It’s not normal. And everyone here seems to know that. The communities are integrated in this state, bizarrely enough, magical and non-magical living amongst one another rather openly, butting up against each other, creating friction, sparking metaphorical fires, and sometimes literal ones. 

No one ever actually mentions magic, though. It’s just...Florida.

They take a quick detour on the way further south to a tiny community called Cassadaga, which is purported to be a town full of Seers, but turns out to be full of frauds like Trelawney and Muggles pretending to be what they call “psychics.” A woman with alabaster skin wearing a yellow lace doily around her neck tries to sell Blaise and Granger a collection of crystals, telling them it will help “heal” their complexions, and Blaise’s face turns stormy as he throws his arm protectively around Granger’s shoulders, and in the moment it takes Draco, Pansy, Weasley, and Potter to spin around, wands drawn, Blaise and Granger have hit the saleswoman with hexes that combine to result in tentacles sprouting from her neck, bulging under the patterned doily. In the ensuing chaos, other jinxes and curses are fired from all ten of their wands, and moments later, the walls are still smoking slightly and the few other customers and the saleslady are on the floor, frozen and unconscious. 

“What happens if two Junior Aurors get arrested by Aurors in another country?” Draco asks. 

“Don’t wanna know,” Ginny says, crouching low over one of the customers to modify his memory. On either side of her, and in the opposite corner of the shop, George, Luna, and Longbottom are doing the same. 

“Don’t care,” says Weasley angrily, putting away his wand. “I’ll have a go at anyone who says that shit to my girlfriend.” He walks over to Blaise and Granger and takes her hand. “Are you alright, Hermione?” When she nods, he kisses her on the cheek and then looks to Blaise, clenches his jaw, and holds out his hand. “Thanks.” Blaise raises one eyebrow by a fraction.

“Granger is more than capable on her own, as I’m sure you well know by now,” he says.

“Of course she is, but the point is, Zabini, you didn’t leave her on her own,” Weasley says, glancing pointedly down at his outstretched hand. Blaise glances down as well and sighs before finally clasping Weasley’s hand and shaking it. 

“Er, can we Apparate back to the car? We’re about to have company,” Potter says, peeking out a window facing the street. Draco ducks behind a curtain and sees that there are indeed people walking toward this shop, a few with concerned expressions, undoubtedly having heard the ruckus.

“Right,” Draco says, turning back toward everyone. “You heard the man. He’s not the Chosen One for nothing.” The last thing he sees as he Disapparates is Potter’s scowling face. He’s still grinning when he jumps into the driver’s seat of the Explorer while everyone else scrambles to buckle their safety belts.

They go to Orlando, park several miles away and then Apparate inside Disney World, where Blaise takes two rolls of film’s worth of photos for Calliope as they Apparate from one park to the next until they’ve visited all four without paying for a single ticket. They all stare at the rides with intense trepidation and spend their time and money instead on food and tacky souvenirs for tourists. George buys ten matching ugly t-shirts and coerces Blaise into using the last photo in the second film roll on a group picture. Wearing too-big shirts emblazoned with cartoon characters popping out of colorful digits forming _2001_ , the ten of them don big, cheesy grins and roll their eyes, a few of them pulling the more reluctant members of their group closer. As the camera snaps the photo, Draco tugs at his shirt a bit in the middle, stretching it so that the bouncy orange lettering of the text under the year is clearly visible - _This is the start of something Big!_

They continue southward toward the wetlands of the Everglades. It’s only early afternoon when Draco parks at a corner shop. 

“Is that her?” George asks, pointing at a young woman sitting on the curb stop in front of an empty parking space, staring into a tin can and shaking it around every few moments.

“That’s her,” Luna, Pansy, and Longbottom say. 

“What on earth is she doing?” Granger asks.

What she’s doing is Divination, apparently. 

“Y’all got tea cups, we got Spaghetti-O’s,” says Violet, with a happy shrug, tossing the can into the rubbish bin before she climbs into the car with them. “Hey, Luna, Neville, Pansy!” She turns around and grins at them. “Good trip?”

“We nearly blew up a whole street in Cassadaga, but otherwise fine,” Blaise says dryly. Violet snorts.

“Oh my god, y’all actually went to Cassadaga? Everyone know that town’s full of con artists. None of _them_ were reading from Chef Boyardee cans, I bet.”

“Do you know, Violet, I see why Luna speaks so highly of you,” George says, amused. 

Violet directs Draco to her great uncle Holata’s house, deep in the Everglade marshes, where he and his wife Hachi transfigure into alligators to lead them all even further into the swamp. Holata convinces Draco to pull teeth from the bloody mouth of a very much alive dugbog and Hachi introduces them to a family of skunk apes, which smell exactly as their name leads one to assume and pull tufts of coarse fur from their own heads and arms to give to Draco upon request and don’t smile. 

Violet’s family loads them down with alligator jerky for the road, and on the way out of Florida, Draco stops for branches from fringetrees and sparkleberries and as well as torreya trees, rare and nearly extinct, whose bowtruckles look sad and exhausted. Draco gives them extra treats and tells them what a good job they’ve done guarding their trees, and Longbottom reaches into his own bag and pulls out an antifungal potion meant for healing trees and slathers it on the torreyas’ trunks, looks up and tells the silent but inquisitive bowtruckles that he hopes it helps stop the destruction of their trees. The bowtruckles smile then, unmistakably, and Luna and Pansy stand on their tiptoes to kiss Longbottom’s face. He blushes the whole way back to the car.

\---

In Alabama, Draco gathers wood from flowering dogwood and green ash trees and purchases the horns and teeth of clabberts - odd little monkey-like frogs that wizards and witches in this region used to keep by the dozens as pets due to the pustules on their heads that grow red when they sense danger which would alert their human owners to approaching Muggles. Further west into Mississippi, Draco collects bald cypress and magnolia branches on the bank of a swamp and lets a young boy on a farm sell him several beautiful blue feathers of a jobberknoll at a price that he knows is far above market value.

They spend a day each in Tennessee - sourwood and Hercules club branches, snipe teeth - and Kentucky - persimmon and coffee tree wood, blue grass - and Weasley buys several bottles of fire bourbon from a wizarding distillery. The five days following that are somewhat of a blur, even as they’re occurring. Draco buys Loveland lizard scales and gathers cottonwood and yellow buckeye branches in Ohio, scutes from the Beast of Busco and waterlocust and wild sweet crabapple wood in Indiana. In Michigan, it’s boxelder and osage orange branches and dogman fur, and in Wisconsin, juneberry and black walnut wood and teakettler whiskers and hodag spines. 

Draco collects branches from black spruce and slippery elm, and purchases axehandle hound fur and teeth in Minnesota, and in Iowa, more jobberknoll feathers, at a better price this time, and hackberry and shagbark hickory wood. He manages to get teeth from the Enfield monsters in Illinois, as well as pumpkin ash and blackjack oak branches, and fur from momos and wood from blue ash and pecan trees in Missouri. In Arkansas, he gathers apple and wild plum wood and rather illegally obtains hair from Fouke monsters. 

He’s eager to get to New Orleans, his father’s favorite city in the United States and the only one that Draco ever visited before this excursion, so they Apparate with the car right after breakfast. Some locals catch him collecting wood from cucumber trees and swamp titis and nearly hex him until they see that the bowtruckles trust them. “That don’t mean I do, though,” they say, one eyebrow raised, before walking back to their verandas. 

They eat lunch at one of his father’s favorite restaurants here and end up ordering five servings of beignets. There’s only one shop that sells authentic hairs from the Honey Lake swamp monsters, so that’s where they go afterward, but before he can find the hairs, Draco gets distracted by a wall of little burlap dolls that look strangely just like them. He approaches it with narrowed eyes, an eerie feeling in his chest. He gets close enough to the dolls that his nose is nearly touching them the scratchy material. He raises his wand and pokes the one that looks like Longbottom in its arm. 

He glances at Longbottom in the corner, sees him wince, but just barely.

“Huh,” he says. Pansy spots him by the wall and walks over to look at the dolls herself. 

“Wait, look, it’s not just us,” she says, pointing to another doll at the top of the wall. Draco glances around the shop and notices a customer who looks exactly like the doll. He shivers.

“Whoa,” Weasley says, and pretty soon they’re all crowded around the wall, staring at it in anxious awe.

“What are they?” Ginny asks.

“Voodoo dolls,” the cashier says in a play spooky voice, laughing. They all turn toward her, taking in her brilliant smile and dark curly hair not unlike Granger’s. “They’re not real, of course. The most harm that’ll come to you is an itch, but that don’t stop people from believing in its power to kill.”

“They’re a novelty item?” Granger asks.

“Well, sure,” the woman says. “Every morning, Ophelia - that’s the owner - makes them new for each customer that’ll be in that day, and the customers get so scared, not wanting anyone else to buy up their doll and have power over them, that they go on ahead and buy up their own. Guaranteed money-maker. Really gets the Muggles who come in here thinking it’s all for fun.”

“Clever,” Draco says quietly, still looking uneasily at the dolls.

“But they look just like us,” Longbottom says.

“Yes, how can she know that?” says Granger. “No branch of Divination is _that_ specific.”

“I got ways of speaking with my late auntie that you don’t know about, young lady,” comes a second voice from behind them. They turn, startled, to see another young woman with dark skin, her hair in beautiful thick braids. 

“Your aunt was a Seer?” Luna says. Ophelia’s laugh sounds light, like a carnival.

“She knew things,” she says simply. She sweeps her discerning eyes across the group of them. “What _I_ want to know is what brings y’all here from all the way across the….” She trails off, and Draco realizes that her gaze is fixed on him. He swallows, nervous, as the others look at him, too, bewildered.

“Draco Malfoy?” Ophelia says, stepping closer, her head tilted in disbelief. 

“Is it really?” asks the other woman, moving quickly from behind the counter.

“Just look at him, Eula,” Ophelia says. “Blond hair, gray eyes...gotta be Lucius’ boy.”

“I’ll be damned,” Eula says quietly, having a better look at Draco now.

“You...you know my father?” Draco asks, anxiety creeping up his ribcage again. It’s usually never good for him when someone knows his father.

“Know him?” Ophelia laughs. “He’s the only white man my auntie ever trusted.”

“That...can’t be true,” Granger says dubiously. Ophelia looks at her, eyebrows raised.

“You can always trust a snake to be a snake, honey, but snakes only strike when you get in their way,” she says. “We had something Lucius wanted, for a price he could pay. Auntie Ada never had no complaints.”

“Something he wanted?” Draco asks. “What did he want?”

“Storage space and discretion,” Eula says.

“He’d bring his possessions here when he didn’t want _your_ government to track them down to whatever shady store he sold them to in England,” Ophelia says. 

“There’s no way the Ministry would bother coming all the way over here even if they could track it,” Blaise says, nodding. “That’s very clever.”

“My auntie thought so, too,” Ophelia says. “We got a whole closet full of Lucius’ stuff. Real Dark. Been holding them for him as instructed, even after she passed on.”

“God rest her soul,” Eula says, her hand over her heart. 

“Last time he was in here - when was it, Eula? ‘95?” asks Ophelia.

“Spring of ‘95, mmhmm. Kept scratching his arm, saying there was a war coming,” Eula says. “Ada thought he was touched.”

“He wasn’t,” Potter says. “There was a war.”

“Is that so?” Ophelia says. She looks at Draco. “And?”

“We were on the wrong side,” he says. She hums.

“Losing side don’t always mean wrong side, dear.”

“It was both,” he says, biting his lip.

“Is he alright?” she asks. “He hasn’t been back...it never occurred to me to think he might be--”

“He survived,” Draco says.

“And your mother?” Eula says gently, cautiously. 

“We all survived.” He swallows. “No prison time, even.” Ophelia snorts.

“That does sound like Lucius,” she says.

“I’m sorry, but did you say you’ve got a closet full of my family’s possessions?” Draco asks, curiosity and the urgent need to change the subject overtaking him.

“Normally we keep it locked tight, but I s’pose you should see it, being that you’re the only heir and all,” Ophelia says. She leads them to the back of the shop, through a series of curtains and hallways, and finally to a closed door. She looks back at them. “Unless you know these objects, I would recommend you don’t touch anything.” Pansy and Blaise shove up to the front of the group, flanking Draco. Ophelia appears amused as she turns to unlock and open the door.

The closet isn’t a small one, and its shelves are top-to-bottom, side-to-side packed full of objects that Draco recognizes from his childhood, his early adolescence, and some that he’s never even laid eyes on before. On either side of him, Pansy and Blaise take in sharp breaths.

“Oh, your mother’s old hair brush!” Pansy squeals, rushing forward to pick up a golden brush from a lower shelf, to look into its mirrored back. “It’s Cursed, of course, but so pretty.”

“Put it down, Pans,” Draco says, “before it starts to burn--” Pansy drops the brush suddenly and rubs her hands frantically on her skirt. She gives Draco a sheepish look before conjuring a small package of ice to hold until the painful heat leaves her fingers. He rolls his eyes at her. 

“All this was stuff your dad should’ve gone to jail for?” Weasley says.

“ _Could_ have,” Draco snaps, unwilling to relent on this point, now or ever. The things in this closet and in his father’s collectibles room back at the Manor aren’t like the diary that he slipped into Ginny’s cauldron nine years ago, as far as Draco is concerned. He never used any of this on anyone, after all, nor is there proof of his intentions. Many of these are merely heirlooms, it seems, rather than ill-gotten goods. 

“Wicked,” George says, stepping further into the room, gazing around at the shelves. “Can we take some of this home with us?”

“You want to _travel_ with this stuff?!” Granger says. 

“That’s all up to Draco,” Ophelia says. “Only a Malfoy can decide what happens to the things in this closet, as per the contract Lucius signed with my auntie.” Draco hums, bites his lip again. It’s not exactly a responsibility he’s interested in having. He’s trying to think of a way to get out of it when Blaise makes a sudden move to his right, a full body twitch that makes Draco startle, glance at Blaise, and realize what caused him to make such a lurch. 

On a shelf just above his eye level, in the corner of the closet, sits a music box, made of onyx and silver, small and round and designed to look like the most ominous carousel. Draco doesn’t pause to take another look at Blaise before he draws his wand, Blaise doing the same thing in the same precise moment.

“ _Accio music box!_ ” they say in unison. Nothing happens.

“No magic like that in here, boys,” Eula says from behind them, and Draco lunges for the music box instead, beating Blaise there by barely a breath, knocking it from the shelf with his open palm and catching it on his chest, hugging it to his body with his hands clenched into fists, careful not to grasp it at all. Blaise is on him immediately, trying to wrest the box from his grip, but Draco twists away, doubles over it to keep it out of Blaise’s reach, and after a few moments Blaise lets out a brief shout of frustration before marching out of the room, out of the shop. 

“Whoa,” Longbottom says, standing aside where Blaise pushed him in his haste to leave. A quick glance is enough to tell Draco that everyone agrees with Longbottom, all of them shocked at Blaise’s behavior, save for Pansy, who looks back at Draco with a fearful expression on her face. She knows the music box, knows Blaise’s history with it. She’s right to be worried. Draco reaches out and squeezes her hand, trying to be reassuring. He doesn’t think it works. 

He takes the box and a few more small things, the ones with sentimental value for him or his parents, ones that he thinks - hopes - that they can cherish without danger, and tells Ophelia to sell the rest.

“Or destroy them, if you want,” he says, taking one last look at the shelves. “Just, whatever you do, strike my father and mother’s names from their provenances.”

“No trace of them,” she says, nodding. “You got it, honey. Anything else I can help you with today?” He’s glad she asks. He nearly forgot to buy Honey Island Swamp monster hair.

Dinner that evening is delicious, as the food in New Orleans always is, but the atmosphere is tense. Blaise remains silent, barely eats but stares stony-faced at his plate, occasionally lifting his gaze to glare in Draco’s direction. Draco tries not to look at Blaise at all. Pansy glances between them, anxious, waiting for the argument that even Draco acknowledges is inevitable. All the others awkwardly attempt to make light conversation, or else look around the table in confusion and uncertainty. 

The inevitable doesn’t occur until after they return to their bayou front hotel suite. As soon as everyone is in the living room, Blaise stands with his back to the door, faces Draco from across the room, and loudly says, “I’m surprised that I’m the only one who seems to be curious about that music box. I can count seven of us, including myself, who should want to take advantage of its presence among us.” Draco swallows. Carefully, slowly, he reaches into his bag on the desk and retrieves the music box by holding it with the tips of his fingers before clutching it to his chest again, his arms making an X ending in tight fists.

“What do you mean, Blaise?” Luna asks. 

“He didn’t tell you what it does, Luna? I thought he would tell you all after I left that room. How interesting,” Blaise says smoothly. “Do you not know either, George?” George glances uneasily at Draco, who meets his eyes, shakes his head subtly, tries to convey that George doesn’t _need_ to know, that none of them do. Blaise laughs. “Merlin, Draco, you’ve not even told your boyfriend? I’m rather disappointed.”

“What does it do, Malfoy?” Ginny asks. Draco looks at all of them, feels deeply outnumbered, even with Pansy inching toward him, clearly on his side. He gives her a brief, grateful glance.

“It lies,” he says finally, “to whosoever holds it in their hands.”

“Oh, let’s not leave out any details,” Blaise says. “Now is not the time for pithy reports, Draco. Our traveling companions are owed a real explanation.” He raises his eyebrows at Draco, who holds his gaze but says nothing. Blaise smirks. “It puts the holder into a memory of someone they’ve lost,” he declares. Draco watches as a murmur passes amongst them all, a sound of intrigue and concern and urgency. George’s back stiffens. He turns to face Draco fully, his eyes searching. 

“When I touch it with both hands, for example,” Blaise continues, “I see my father, singing a lullaby to me. It’s a memory from before I could even remember things, before he died. With all the loss contained in this room, most people here should want to get their hands on it just as much as I do.” Next to Draco, Pansy inhales sharply, and Draco understands immediately. If Blaise is willing to divulge such personal information to touch this object again, then a real fight might just be imminent.

“You’re not telling them what it did to you the last time you held it,” Draco says to Blaise. “Stand down, Blaise. Don’t make me tell them.” Blaise doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Draco sighs through his teeth and looks around at the others, addressing them. “Blaise found it at my house when we were three years old. It may as well have possessed him. He sat in the study and held it for hours on end. My parents could barely get it out of his hands and he’d start screaming when they did take it from him. He stopped playing with Pansy and me. He cared about nothing else, not even himself. He wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. My father found him in the middle of the night, out of bed, hiding under a table with this music box in his hands. That’s when my parents got rid of it, got it out of the house. I suppose they didn’t want to take it to Borgin and Burkes in case Blaise ever saw it in there. They took it _across an ocean_ to keep Blaise safe from it. That should tell you enough.”

“It’s like the Resurrection Stone,” Granger says quietly.

“Yes,” Draco says, thankful for her adequately worried tone. “It’s _Cursed_. It will make you think that the memory is real, but the people it will show you are still gone. You’ll waste away holding it. It’s designed to destroy you.”

“You can see Fred again, Weasleys,” Blaise says lightly, a stark chill in his dark eyes. Draco notices how shallowly George, Ginny, and Weasley are breathing. He clenches his jaw. “Luna, your mother died when you were very young, right? You can see her again, too. Potter, you can see your parents, maybe even your godfather. And, Longbottom, the loss doesn’t have to be a death. You can see your mother and father again, whole and healthy, happy, holding you.” 

“No,” Luna says suddenly, her voice cutting clear and loud above the tension filling the room and all of their senses. She walks across the room to stand next to Draco and Pansy. She shakes her head at Blaise. “My mum is dead. She’s never coming back. I’ll see her again, one day, but here, in this life, on this earth, she’s gone. It’s dangerous and hurtful to entertain any other notion.”

“I want to see Fred,” Ginny says lowly. Abruptly, the Weasleys, Potter, Longbottom, and Blaise all draw their wands.

“Wait!” Granger shrieks, crossing to join Draco, Pansy, and Luna. She looks at the Weasleys and Potter, terrified and trembling. “Think what you’re doing. Drawing your wands on Malfoy over a Cursed object - this is mad!”

“Not like it’s the first time,” Potter says. 

“Ron, Ginny, _please_ ,” Granger says, tearfully. “Please don’t make me fight against you for this.”

“Neville, please,” Pansy says, her voice small, but Luna pulls her wand from behind her ear, and in mere moments, Pansy and Granger have theirs out as well. Draco doesn’t reach for his. He grits his teeth, trains his eyes on Potter, who looks vaguely unnerved at his attention.

“Potter, I know you can understand this,” he says, an increasing desperation rising slowly within him, as if chained to his anxiety. “This was a Black family heirloom. It was created two centuries ago by people who believed that caring for someone is a weakness. It’s _meant_ to ruin people, to punish them for possessing the capacity to love. But we know the truth, in this room: love doesn’t make one _weak_. It’s a strength. You’re living proof of that, aren’t you?” Potter blinks, his wand faltering slightly. Draco takes in a breath. “And you...you died for us - so aren’t we all?” 

Potter is silent for several long moments, barely breathing, and finally he sighs, relenting. He drops his wand and crosses the room to side with Draco, for once, and Draco would laugh about it if the situation weren’t so dire.

“It’s like the Mirror of Erised, Ron,” Potter says. “It’s not worth it.” Weasley shakes his head.

“That was before I lost Fred,” Weasley says stonily. “I think it’s worth it now.” Potter raises his wand again in resignation.

“ _You_ didn’t lose Fred,” Ginny says, turning her glare toward him. “ _We_ did.”

“I think most people would argue that it was _George_ who _really_ lost Fred,” Blaise says. Draco hears Pansy, next to him, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. She knows what Draco knows, that Blaise is simply trying to exacerbate the trouble in the air, to push just enough to make someone else snap first. As many times as they’ve eagerly watched him do it for the sake of their entertainment, it’s suddenly not as enjoyable to witness. Already, Ginny and Weasley have begun arguing with one another, demanding that George tell them if that’s what he believes as well. George remains silent, though, not taking his eyes off of Draco, who is starting to feel defeated at the idea of what this music box could do to George, the power it could easily have over him. He blinks away the stinging in his eyes.

“George,” he says, his voice shaking, “George, please. _Please._ Remember the forest. Remember that night. You fucking dragged me out there against my will to look for the Resurrection Stone. Do you remember?” George says nothing, but a twitch in his clenched jaw bids Draco to continue. “You trusted me then, to do that for you, and I don’t even know why, and then when the prospect of not finding it drove you mad, you let me put my hand on your chest to help you breathe through it. You trusted me with that, too, and you barely even knew me. _I_ barely knew you then, but I trusted you to do the right thing, ultimately, to get us out of there, to let it go.” George’s hand is unsteady, his outstretched wand trembling. Draco takes a step toward him, imploring. “You were so brave, George, to let go. Remember?” 

George draws in a shuddering breath, swallows. The coldness behind his eyes fades slowly, his usual warmth returning slowly to the blue. He glances at the music box, at a space above their heads, and back to Draco, giving him a single nod. Draco knows, instinctively, what George is going to do. He nods, too, and tosses the music box into the air, finally drawing his wand. He and George aim at it together.

“ _Incendio!_ ” they shout. 

In the midst of half of the room screaming in disappointment and rage and the other half yelling defensive spells, the music box bursts into flames. A singular ear-splitting wail emerges from the music box as it hits the floor, trailing off into a pathetic whine as the Curse within it dies and the flames peter out. The moment in which all that’s left is embers, Blaise lurches again, his hardened face relaxing. He looks around him, surprised at the circumstances, as if returning from a trance. He glances down at his own wand pointing at Draco, and drops it in horror. 

“Draco,” he breathes, but Draco is by his side in a second, pulling him close for a rare hug.

“It’s alright,” Draco says. “It’s over. I understand.” He looks about the room, sees Longbottom rubbing his eyes, Pansy and Luna hugging him, Ginny wiping her face as Potter holds her, and Weasley apologizing profusely to Granger, both of them with tears rolling down their cheeks. Draco looks, then, at George, standing alone, staring down at the ashes of the music box.

“Go,” Blaise says, his voice thick. “I’m going to go write a letter to Calliope. I’ll be alright.” Draco frowns, squeezes hard around Blaise’s wrist, and then walks over to George, who gives him a look of such deep sorrow that Draco feels it in his own muscles.

“I know it might not feel this way,” he says quietly, running his hand down George’s arm to intertwine their fingers, “but I meant what I said: you were so brave that night.” He glances at the ashes. “You shouldn’t have to be, George, but you’re always so brave.”

\---

They Apparate with the car again the next morning, to Texas, where they drive for hours and hours and hours, collecting wild olive and ebony wood, teeth of the Elmendorf beasts and horns from the Lake Worth monsters. They eat too much barbecue and chili and hamburgers between them all, and fall asleep earlier than usual on full, happy stomachs. The next day they drive through Oklahoma, where Draco obtains branches from Chinese pastiche and loblolly pine trees and purchases Ozark Howler hair, and then into Kansas, where he gets Beaman monster fur and gathers wood from trees of heaven and pagodas. There’s a problem with their lodging in Kansas that night, much to everyone’s chagrin, and they all end up having to share one room. It’s a large room, but still, there’s only so much space to conjure beds, and they’re all terribly uncomfortable with the others seeing how each coupling of them shares a bed together, which at least gives Blaise a good laugh. They manage, though, to work it out, get over the discomfort enough to fall asleep.

Then Draco has a nightmare. 

He wakes up screaming, bolting upright and flailing blindly, and immediately he feels George’s strong arms around him, holding him close, hand in his hair and mouth pressed to his temple, as always. He vaguely hears rustling and commotion throughout the room, but it doesn’t make enough of an impact to bother him, to shake him from his trained concentration on George’s voice, making reassurances and promises. He thinks he feels George shake his head, move his hand in a waving gesture, but it’s all he can do to just steady his breathing enough to fall back to sleep.

In the morning, at 7, he awakens again, silently this time, and bolts upright once more at the abrupt realization that eight people who are not George heard him wake brutally from his nightmare just hours ago. The idea of spending the day with them now makes him feel sick. He tiptoes around their sleeping forms, casts a charm on himself so that he can go about his morning routine without disturbing any of them, and exits the room, goes down to the breakfast service on the first floor. The others begin appearing twenty minutes later, in pairs, save for George, who swoops in alone and kisses Draco, sliding his chair obnoxiously close and resting his forehead on Draco’s shoulder. 

A quiet breakfast would normally be a gift to Draco, but now he wants nothing more than to hear the endless insignificant chatter that typically accompanies the meals they have at their hotels and inns. They _know_ now, and he knows that they know, and they know that he knows that they know, and none of them are saying anything about it, or asking questions, and making a joke of it. They’re all just letting it hang there over them, this dreadful secret. Draco wants to scream at them, at himself. 

“Time to get on the road, yeah?” he says, getting to his feet. “I’ll pack up the car.” He waves his wand and walks outside, the luggage floating along in the air behind him. By the time he arranges everything in the boot and closes the door, the others have joined him beside the car and his anxiety has scaled his ribcage, threatening to sink its claws into his throat. George’s hand comes to rest on Draco’s lower back, stroking softly. 

“I can drive today, love,” he says quietly. “You can kip on the way. You didn’t sleep well last night.” 

“I’m fine,” Draco says through gritted teeth, but he feels anxiety scratching at his throat, squeezing and twisting into a panic attack. He grips the keys hard in his fist and closes his eyes, tries to breathe deeply and will it away, but the count gets away from him, and his breaths come shallow and quick. He gasps, flattens his free hand against the car, and drops the keys, and when he bends down to pick them up, his knees give out and then he’s sitting on the ground and he can’t breathe and--

“Draco, here,” George says, crouching down next to him, taking Draco’s hand and pressing it to his own chest, and placing his own against Draco’s. “Follow my breathing, yeah?” 

“I can’t, I can’t,” Draco chokes out.

“You can, Draco, I know you can,” George says softly. He presses his free hand over Draco’s hand, holds it to his chest as he breathes slowly. “Follow me.” It takes a couple of minutes and drains all of Draco’s focus, but he finally manages it, gets his breathing in order with George’s help, and this time, when George says, “Let me drive today, darling. Please,” Draco hands him the keys and gets into the passenger seat. 

He rests his head against George’s shoulder and falls asleep.

He naps for much of the drive. The others try to gather wood from concolor firs in Nebraska without him so that he can sleep more, but the bowtruckles won’t come down the tree for any of them. 

“Who’s the Chosen One now, Potter?” Draco says as he walks up behind them, having woken up in the car and gone after them to the trees. Potter scoffs and scowls as Draco successfully greets the bowtruckles and convinces them to tell their trees to give him branches for wandmaking. Back in the car afterward, though, he falls asleep again, waking for ponderosa pines while Luna and Pansy buy jarvey fur from a creature keeper before they cross the border into South Dakota, whereupon he drifts back to sleep slumped against George’s side, George’s protective arm around him.

The car is stopped when he wakes again. At some point during his slumber, he moved away from George, and a quick, groggy, evaluation made with his eyes still closed tells him that he’s curled up in the seat, facing the window. He’s about to shake himself into true alertness, open his eyes and look around to gain his bearings and figure out why he’s been left alone in the car again when he realizes that he’s not, actually. 

“Hermione gets nightmares, too,” comes Weasley’s voice, quietly, from the row of seats behind Draco. A surge of fury takes over a brief moment of confusion and Draco’s eyes suddenly open wide. How dare these people - several of them his _friends_ \- leave him in a confined space with only Ronald Weasley for company? And now Weasley wants to engage in a sincere, heartfelt conversation, wants to _bond_ with him now that Weasley’s seen him in a most vulnerable circumstance and Draco is _trapped_! George would never do this to Draco--the heat of his rage turns chilly suddenly. Has George been abducted? Didn’t he read that people get abducted by alleged extraterrestrial life forms in places like South Dakota? Are they parked near a crop circle made by something other than mooncalves?

“Understandable,” George says blankly, from the driver’s seat next to Draco.

 _Oh_ , he thinks, thankful for George’s safety and also that he doesn’t have to sit up and get out of the car to assess the local crop circle situation. _Good._

“And so does Harry,” Weasley says. Draco hears a faint sigh from George.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me Draco doesn’t deserve to have them, hmm? He didn’t endure enough to be worth a nightmare? To deserve anyone’s sympathy?”

“ _No_ ,” Weasley whispers defensively. “I’m not as stupid as you think, you know. I know he went through something awful. I don’t resent his nightmares. I _have_ got a heart.”

A long moment of silence and then, “Sorry,” George says softly. “I don’t think you’re stupid, I just...What’s your point, Ron?”

“I just mean...I know what it feels like, to not be able to keep someone you love safe from it.” Weasley clears his throat and mutters, “Helpless.”

It must be nearly a full minute of quiet before George says, so quietly that it pierces Draco’s chest to hear, “I can protect him from everything except his own head.” 

“Yeah,” Weasley says. It sounds like he sincerely does know the feeling. Draco bites his lip. He stirs, as if he’s only just waking up, and turns to squint at George.

“Ah, the Malfoy heir awakens,” George says, his eyes wide and dancing with mischief. Draco almost wishes he could’ve seen George’s face moments ago, though he knows how much it would have hurt. “Truly, we are blessed.” In the backseat, Weasley snorts.

Draco doesn’t fall asleep again, but he lets George keep driving until they get to Bismarck, when they have to check the map and ask a few locals how to get to the Badlands, and then Draco drives to the cabin they’ve rented for the night. They all sit in the living room and drink mead while Draco bundles up the bur oak and corkwood branches and jobberknoll feathers from South Dakota and the doxy teeth and chokecherry and American arborvitae wood from North Dakota to fly out with an owl tomorrow. Someone gets the risky idea to play “Two Truths and a Lie,” and they’re all tipsy enough to go along with it, which is how Draco learns that Longbottom gets paid by one of his herbology clients in gillyweed, that Ginny received fairly lousy marks at Hogwarts, and that Potter has been thinking this whole time that Tracey Davis is flirting with him at work.

“Oh, honey,” Ginny says, patting Potter’s arm.

“Potter,” Pansy barks after she, Blaise, and Draco have all had a good, long laugh. She fixes him with a very serious stare. “Potter. She’s a lesbian. Be honest with me: do you know what a lesbian is?”

“Yes, I _know_ what a _lesbian_ is!” Potter squawks, his face flushed.

“But you didn’t know she was one,” Blaise says, in a tone that expertly conveys just how much Blaise is convinced that Potter knows what a lesbian is. “Good god, man. Tracey Davis is _aggressively_ homosexual, and you just had no idea.”

“Not _only_ that, but you thought that she was _chatting you up_!” Draco says, his voice still raw from howling laughter. “I mean, you _really_ thought that our Slytherin sistren was just out in the Auror Department trying to jump into bed with Harry Potter!”

“It wasn’t like that!” Potter exclaims. “Ron, back me up here!”

“Mate...you _didn’t_ know Tracey’s a lesbian?” Weasley whispers loudly, drunk enough to think that he’s being quiet and subtle. It sets Draco, Blaise, and Pansy off into hysterics again and leaves them hiccupping on the floor, clutching their sides.


	17. Chapter 17

The next day, in Montana, Draco collects wood from douglas firs and pacific yews as well as fur from furry trout, although he does struggle not to gag as he’s in the fish farmer’s home. They stop for the night in Wyoming after he’s obtained Rocky Mountain juniper and golden willow branches and jackalope antlers, and Granger, finally losing her patience, Draco supposes, crosses her arms and says, “Are you going to show me or not?” Draco looks up at her from the table, narrows his eyes for a moment, and then shrugs.

“Of course, Granger,” he says.

“Wait, show you what?” Weasley asks Granger.

“His cock,” Blaise says dryly. Ginny snorts and has to press her fist over his mouth to keep her giggling in check. 

“The wandmaking process,” Draco says very clearly.

“So, yeah, his cock,” says George. 

“Rude,” Draco and Granger say. Ginny squeaks with laughter. Draco rolls his eyes as he opens the case of wands he’s been carrying around for months. 

“You’ve made that many?” Granger asks, looking wide-eyed at the table. “There must be a hundred wands there.”

“One hundred and eight,” Draco says. “This batch is just from the past month. I’ve sent hundreds of others home already. Are you ready to see how it works or not?” Granger promptly sits down. Then everyone else does, too.

“Oh, sure, this can be a show,” Draco says sarcastically. “It’s fine.”

“Let’s just see it then, Malfoy, alright?” Weasley says. Draco sighs.

“Fine.” He pulls out an unfinished wand of red oak - carved but without a core - and sets it on the table, clearing everything else off of the surface. He hovers his open palm over the wood, then touches it with his finger, dragging it slowly from tip to handle. It cracks open a moment later. Everyone but Draco and George jump back. 

“ _Really?_ ” Granger says, full of curiosity. “That’s not how I imagined it at all.”

“Just wait,” George says excitedly, bouncing his knee next to Draco’s. 

“What should the core be for this one?” Draco asks.

“Doxy teeth!” Luna says. Draco smiles.

“You know I can’t say ‘no’ to you, Luna,” he says, reaching back into his bag for the jar. He shakes out about a dozen individual doxy teeth into his hand and places them on the wand, where the wood has split, lining them up so that each of them are equidistant from the others.

“Does that type of precision matter?” Potter asks.

“Probably not,” Draco says.

“He’s just a control freak,” George says with a grin.

“One of us has to be,” Draco mumbles. He places the jar back into his bag and pulls out a knife.

“Whoa,” Ginny says, but Granger gasps in realization.

“It’s _blood magic_!” she exclaims, smacking her hand to her forehead. “Of _course_!”

“Five points to Gryffindor,” Draco says. 

“Wait, so you...you cut yourself?” Potter asks. He sounds rather horrified. Draco looks up at him and raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t make it sound so dramatic, Potter,” he says, and pricks his finger with the tip of the knife. Potter and Weasley jump. Draco looks at them again, unimpressed. “ _How_ are the two of you Aurors?”

“Just get on with it,” Weasley says grumpily. Draco rolls his eyes, squeezes his finger over the wand until a few drops of blood fall. They all watch as the doxy teeth dissolve into the wood, the contents swirling for several moments, sparking and crashing like a tiny lightning storm on a beach, and then settle. Draco glances up at them while the wand seals itself, appreciating their amazed expressions. 

“Can I try it?” Pansy asks. Draco nods and she picks it up tentatively, produces water from the end of it, then siphons it up from the table surface. She holds it in front of her face and grins at it. “Brilliant.” Blaise takes it from her hand and twirls it in his fingers, looking at it with narrowed eyes.

“Does it have to be pure blood?” he asks curiously. Granger gives him a dirty look, which he notices after a short moment. He blinks at her. “ _What?_ I think that’s a reasonable question.” Granger snaps at him defensively while Draco pulls out another incomplete wand - ebony, this time - opens it up, and places a jobberknoll feather in the wooden valley. 

“Granger,” he interrupts, and she turns to him angrily.

“ _What?_ Oh!” She holds out her hand and Draco holds it steady in his own, picks up the knife.

“Now, _wait_ just one minute-- _gah!_ ” says Weasley in utmost distress, gripping the sides of his head. A drop of blood is already appearing on the pad of Granger’s middle finger. Draco turns Granger’s hand over and holds her finger above the open wand, pinches until a deep red blossoms over the wood. Draco rubs his thumb over Granger’s finger, absentmindedly murmuring a now familiar incantation before letting go of her hand, which Weasley reaches for immediately, examining the damage. “You healed it,” he says, surprised.

“Shh! Look, Ron!” Granger says excitedly. The wand on the table is responding to her blood just as it did to Draco’s, absorbing the feather in wooden waves, closing on its own when completed. Draco snatches it up before Blaise or Granger can reach for it and transfigures the table in front of them into a pony just long enough for Luna to squeal before changing it back. Granger looks delighted, utterly ecstatic, and Blaise appears awestruck. 

“It really doesn’t matter,” he says quietly. 

“It makes sense,” Draco says, with great sympathy for the final shift taking place in Blaise’s mind right now. It shouldn’t take such a dramatic sight, but no one who witnessed what just occurred could rationally stand on any degree of blood purity. He hands the finished wand to Blaise, who holds it with something like reverence. “The first person with magic can’t have had magical parents.”

“It’s not just wands that choose, then,” Pansy says softly.

“It’s magic itself,” says Blaise. He shakes his head. He twists the wand around, conjuring a bouquet of pink tulips, and hands the flowers to Granger. “I apologize, Granger,” he says. “We were wrong.” 

\---

Colorado brings lodgepole pine, blue spruce, and dire wolf teeth. Draco gets mountain mahogany and smooth sumac wood from New Mexico along with thorns from cactus cats. They sleep in a tent in the middle of the desert, the enchanted roof showing them the stars above. It’s terribly dry here and the desert insects are some of the creepiest that Draco has ever encountered, but he can’t complain about the view.

The next day they drive through Arizona, collecting velvet mesquite and poisonous chinaberry branches, purchasing rattlesnake rattles. In Utah, Draco collects bigtooth maple and gambel oak wood and buys Bear Lake monster scales. When they check into their inn, Pansy grabs Draco and Blaise by the elbows and says, “Slytherin outing! No commoners allowed!” and Disapparates with them both to the mountain peak of Bluebell Knoll. They sit on rocks and pass around a bottle of wine and talk, about Hogwarts and the war, about their friendship and old plans, about blood status and generational dissonance. 

Pansy looks out at the sun setting and says, “It all turned out a lot messier than planned, didn’t it?” 

“To say the least,” Blaise says. He gestures vaguely to the three of them and then outward - over the mountains, technically, but Draco knows what he means, the general _this_ of it all. “No one could have predicted any of this, not even a real Seer.”

“I’m glad for it, though,” Draco says. “Aren’t you? I mean, it’s been painful, like, gut-wrenchingly, heartbreakingly, I’d-rather-be-dead-than-endure-one-more-second-of-this painful. But I’ve also been happier than I ever believed I could be, and none of it would’ve happened without all the pain.” He shakes his head, thinking of the people they’ve got waiting for them back at the inn, back in England. “It’s all tangled up together.” Pansy and Blaise hum thoughtfully.

“Like capellini,” says Blaise.

“Like necklace chains,” says Pansy.

Draco huffs out a laugh. “What’s life, really, without mess?”

\---

The next day is their last of hitting two states in one day: western larch, grand fir, and knarl quills in Idaho; dire wolf teeth, foothill palo verde, and western honey mesquite in Nevada. They take their time on the way to southern California, driving around several little nothing towns, the lights and colors of Las Vegas in the rearview mirror. In the early morning, they head to Joshua Tree National Park, where they meet Rolf Scamander, a shaggy-haired American naturalist with wide eyes who looks like he smokes enough gillyweed for the lot of them. He greets Luna, Pansy, and Longbottom like old friends and most everyone else with pleasant interest as Luna introduces them all. He gives Draco an odd sort of crooked, unreadable smile.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Draco Malfoy,” Scamander says, “from Luna and Pansy and Neville.” Draco raises his eyebrows. Scamander’s smile turns mischievous. “Three _wildly_ different impressions.”

“Well, I do contain multitudes,” Draco says, and Scamander breaks into a loud, sudden laugh. 

They’re travelling for the day under the guidance of Scamander, who watches closely as Draco places his hands on a Joshua tree and befriends the bowtruckles. When the tree shakes out a few branches for Draco to use for wands, Scamander grins and claps Draco on the arm.

“You’re an okay dude,” he says. Draco is flummoxed.

Scamander takes them to the Mojave Desert for Mohave yucca to use as wand cores, to Los Angeles for Mexican elderberry wood, to San Jose for sycamores. In Oakland and Sierra Nevada, Draco looks up at the redwoods and giant sequoias with his jaw dropped, in absolute awe. 

“Gorgeous, aren’t they?” Scamander says, lifting his sunglasses up to his forehead as he follows Draco’s gaze. 

“Incredible,” Draco says. The bowtruckles of those trees are bigger than others as well, taller and thicker but still just as kind and generous, just as protective. He promises them that he’ll use the wood well, that the magic will choose only the wizards and witches worthiest of such a big responsibility. They seem to appreciate that he knows that they prefer doxy eggs to those of fairies, and they nod up to the top of their trees, then tap their little twiggy arms on it, as if knocking on wood with a closed fist. Draco and his friends use a strong Shield Charm to protect their heads from branches that have hundreds of feet to fall. 

They end the day in a tiny all-Wizarding town located on Mount Eddy, the highest peak of a mountain range in northern California, where ghost deer - pure white elk-sized deer whose bodies cannot be damaged by spells and that have the ability to disappear and reappear at will - roam freely. Draco is ready to force Potter to help him get antlers from a ghost stag, but Potter is actually eager to interact with the creatures, sends his Patronus over to a small family of them without hesitation when Draco suggests it. The ghost stag approaches the two of them slowly then, following the Patronus back with caution, and after some moments of intense sniffing, allows Potter and Draco to pet his soft coat. 

Draco asks the stag if he knows where Draco can get some shed antlers to use as wand cores, and Potter looks at him like he thinks that Draco’s finally going fully mad and hates that he’s there to witness it, but the stag moves its head in a way that seems to say, “Follow me,” so Draco does, with Potter trailing behind him. The ghost stag leads them to a small house in the center of town, where a tall witch with dark hair and a wide face interrogates Draco on his wandmaking techniques and then sells him a few ghost deer antlers before the stag leads them back toward their little rented cabin on the outskirts of the town. 

“That was really cool,” Potter says, after they wave farewell to the disappearing ghost stag, as they finish the walk to the cabin. Draco closes his rolling eyes and sighs. 

“Don’t ruin this experience by speaking to me, Potter.”

\---

In Oregon, after Draco has collected branches of bitter cherry and golden chinquapin trees and bought splintercat whiskers, they check into a large suite at Wind & Willows Bed & Breakfast Inn, a Wizarding establishment chosen by George, who accidentally struck up a conversation with the owners at the restaurant where they all ate lunch, decided that they were some of the most annoying people he’s ever met, and wanted to stay at their place overnight in order to leave obnoxious prank items all around the largest and most popular suite. 

“I fully support you in your commitment to make the lives of those who annoy you markedly worse,” Draco says as they enter the suite, before they all start exploring. It is a very weird little inn. _Kitschy._ Luna and Ginny love it. Draco thinks that it’s giving him hives.

He approaches a large wardrobe in the corner. “Hey, George, I think this might be a good spot for one of your portable swamps,” he says. He reaches out and opens the wardrobe door.

Bellatrix Lestrange steps out.

“ _Aaugh!_ ” he shouts, jumping back so suddenly that he falls to the floor. He hears Granger gasping behind him, hears Longbottom cry out in alarm nearby. Draco scrambles to his feet.

“Boggart! Malfoy, it’s a boggart!” Granger exclaims, but Draco has already realized, has the spell halfway out of his mouth as the Bellatrix in front of him raises her wand menacingly, glaring at him with malice.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” 

Her wand flies from her hand. She jumps and looks around in startled confusion. Draco barks out a nervous little laugh, his heart pounding too fast in his chest. The boggart rounds on Longbottom next, retaining its form. Longbottom takes half a step back, but he’s already holding out his wand. The Bellatrix boggart, wand back in her hand and pointed at her new target, sneers at Longbottom, opens her mouth. Her lips curve in an accustomed shape to spit out the Cruciatus Curse, but Longbottom shouts, “ _Riddikulus!_ ” and she seems to lose her voice, clutching at her throat frantically. Longbottom laughs, surer than Draco did, and when the boggart angrily turns back to Draco, he grits his teeth and shakes his head.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ”

Bellatrix stumbles clumsily over her robes, nearly falling on her face. As Draco laughs at her, she turns toward Longbottom again, her face white with rage.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ”

Bellatrix performs a silly little dance from a game for children, making Longbottom laugh loudly. Before the boggart can round on Draco again, Granger rushes forward between him and Longbottom, a determined look on her wide-eyed face. With wand in hand and wearing an all too familiar deranged expression, Bellatrix remains Bellatrix as the boggart approaches Granger, who exchanges glances with Draco and Longbottom. After a final nod, the three of them point at the boggart with their wands.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” they scream.

It’s a scene that Draco dreams about still, the one moment of the war that brought him peace, the one memory that isn’t a nightmare. The Bellatrix before them, her head thrown back in silenced cackling laughter, freezes for a moment. Her sneering grin fades quickly as her eyes bulge. She crumbles to the ground, exactly as she did when Molly Weasley killed her. It’s different, seeing it up close, as opposed to from a corner, huddled with his parents. It’s better.

Draco and Longbottom give great belly laughs, enjoying the sight. Granger lets out an absolute screech of vindicated laughter. The boggart vanishes. 

“Holy shit,” Ginny says into the ensuing quiet from across the room. Granger huffs out a laugh. Draco glances behind him to see the rest of their friends staring in impressed but horrified astonishment. 

“She was a right piece of work, wasn’t she?” Longbottom says. Draco snorts.

“You could say that,” he says.

“What did she do to you, Malfoy?” Granger asks quietly.

“She made me see inside her head,” Draco says. The whole room seems to give a low hiss of sympathy. He turns toward George, Ginny, and Weasley. “I know it wasn’t about us, but the best thing that ever happened to my family in the war was watching your mother kill her.” He looks back at the space where the lifeless form of Bellatrix Lestrange lay just moments ago. “I’ve never seen my own mother so relieved.”

\---

In Washington the next day, Draco collects western hemlock and sitka spruce branches along with sasquatch fur, and they turn in the car. 

“Wow, you guys really put some miles on this baby,” says the wizard checking in the car before he goes inspects to it. 

“Well, we would’ve put more on, but we were on a restrictive schedule,” Draco says in the direction of the man’s back. He turns to the rest of the group. “When we do this again, we’ll take our time.”

“‘Do this _again_ ’?” Weasley says, incredulous.

“And we’ll bring Calliope next time,” Draco says. Blaise nods.

“She would love this,” he says.

“And we can go to those magical greenhouses in Kentucky that you were talking about, Neville,” Pansy says, sitting in Longbottom’s lap with her arms around his neck as he curls her hair around his finger affectionately. He smiles at her.

“And we can visit the Fantastic Beasts Zoo like Luna’s been wanting,” Longbottom says as Luna sits down next to him and kisses his cheek, taking one of Pansy’s hands in hers.

“I _would_ like to see some Quidditch matches,” Ginny says to Potter, who gives her a thoughtful look. “There’s _six_ all-women teams!”

“Quodpot, too,” Potter says. “The Quaffles _explode_. Surely that’s something worth witnessing in person.”

“And there are so many schools here and different educational systems and teaching pedagogies!” Granger says. “I couldn’t possibly have gotten to them all in a month. Exploring the advantages and disadvantages of the Montessori method _alone_ would take at least a week.”

“But can’t those things be done _alone_?” Weasley says imploringly to Granger, Potter, and Ginny. “Separately, I mean? Do we really have to go on another road trip with Parkinson and Zabini and _Malfoy_?”

“Come off it, Ron. We all _know_ you’ve had fun on this trip,” George says. Everyone chimes in with their agreement. Weasley groans and looks to the sky, as if searching for a more favorable solution in the heavens. After a few long moments, he heaves a loud sigh.

“ _Fine_ , I’m in,” he says. Draco plasters on his most obnoxious grin. Weasley glares at him.

\---

They celebrate Longbottom’s birthday in Alaska. It’s comfortably cool and a bit rainy, and after Draco has collected branches from scouler willow and Alaskan yellow cedar trees in the morning, he lets Longbottom decide how they spend the rest of the day. Longbottom immediately leads them to the tundra, where he examines and takes specimens of every strange magical plant that he comes across, and where Pansy and Luna befriend several unicorns. By the time they Apparate to Lake Iliamna for Draco to pick up some lake monster scales at the end of the day, Longbottom looks deliriously happy, and he ducks his head to hide the delighted flush on his face when they return to their cabin from dinner to a surprise for him on the table in the middle of the kitchen: a large cake that’s identical to a Mimbulus mimbletonia, enchanted to move and all.

They wake up very early the next day with a mission: see the sunrise in Hawai’i. It was Potter’s request at the beginning, during the planning stages for this whole global expedition, when he learned that they’d be in Hawai’i on his birthday. So they Apparate to a beach on the island of Kauai at 6 in the morning, as dawn is slowly giving way to the sunrise. The collective gasping seems requisite here in the quiet, where the only other sounds is that of calmly crashing waves.

Blaise takes one look around them and says, “No, not one more day,” and Disapparates. Everyone looks to Draco and Pansy, who shrug, just as confused as the others, and they all jump in surprise a minute later when Blaise reappears, this time with a very shocked Calliope.

“ _What_ the _fuck_ was that?!” Calliope screams. She was clearly just leaving work when Blaise appeared to her in England and, apparently, kidnapped her.

“Are you alright? Physically? You’re not bleeding anywhere, are you? No body parts missing?” Blaise asks, single-minded and about as frantic as Draco has ever heard him. He’s got his hands on Calliope’s shoulders, turning her this way and that, checking her all over for any signs of splinching as she continues ranting.

“Is that how you lot _travel_?!” says Calliope at rather high volume. “What the _fuck_? And with no warning that I would feel like I was being sucked through a garden hose? Blaise, why the _fuck_ did you--” He turns her toward the ocean. She stops speaking immediately, takes in a sharp breath. “Oh.”

“I didn’t want to spend another minute without you in a place so beautiful,” Blaise says quietly. Calliope nods.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” she says in a low voice, as if she’s suddenly self-conscious about disturbing the softness of this moment. “We’re going to watch this sunrise together, and then we’re going to whatever hotel you’ve reserved, and we’re going to stay there all morning, and then I’m going to buy a swim cozzie, and then we can do whatever for the rest of the day and night, and then I’m _not going back home that way again_. We’ll travel back _my_ way.”

“Sure,” Blaise says agreeably. “What’s that, like, by boat or something?” Calliope gives him a pitying look.

“Oh, love,” she says sadly. “I’ll explain air travel to you at lunch.” 

The eleven of them watch the sunrise over the ocean, and then Blaise and Calliope disappear, as promised, while Draco, clad in a vest again, wanders the island collecting breadfruit and hala tree wood, with George diligently reapplying Defense Against the Light Rays potion to his skin every couple of hours. By lunchtime, he’s also purchased several honeycreeper feathers, so the remainder of the day is entirely free. 

They’re all feeling relaxed and blissful, from the sun and the ocean and the trip coming to an end. Sometime in the afternoon, long after Draco’s lost track of time and just gone ahead and taken off his shirt entirely, he sits down in the sand by the water next to Potter and Granger, their skin getting beautifully darker in the sun as Draco slathers more potion on his pale shoulders and chest. Digging his toes into the warm, wet sand, Draco follows Potter’s eyeline out into the ocean where George, Ginny, and Weasley are attempting to learn how to surf from a local wizard. It seems to be going about as well as anyone could expect.

“It’s maddening, isn’t it?” Draco says after a few minutes. Potter looks sidelong at him, questioning. “Loving a Weasley,” Draco clarifies. Potter laughs, sounding surprised.

“It is a bit, yeah,” he says.

“You two really have _no_ idea,” Granger says from Potter’s other side. Draco leans forward some to see that she’s pulled her nose out of the book she’s been reading all afternoon. She’s watching Weasley now, a sweet and confounded look on her face. 

Draco turns to watch George again then, and the three of them sit in a long, companionable silence. He doesn’t make a comment about how dreadful Weasley seems to be at surfing. He doesn’t point out that Ginny looks like a mouse with her hair wet. He doesn’t mention that George’s skin will be all golden and warm when they get back to the hotel this evening and that he can’t wait to touch him. 

He glances a bit further down the beach to where Luna, Pansy, and Longbottom are lying on a towel under a large umbrella, Longbottom shirtless in the middle, his arms around nearly naked Luna and Pansy on either side of him as they cuddle against him, the three of them kissing lazily in the sun. Draco shifts his gaze to the ocean just ahead of them, where Blaise and Calliope are standing waist deep in the waves, her arms around his neck and his hands on her lower back, Calliope undoubtedly still trying to assuage Blaise’s fears even hours after he agreed to take an airplane back to England with her tomorrow. 

_This is something good_ , he thinks. He can be a part of this, this big, strange crowd of love and light, even if he has to stand in the corner of it sometimes, where the shadows can still shelter him.

\---

Draco returns to Cokeworth on the first of August to find that Muggles have begun moving into town over the summer. They’re younger families, mostly, many with at least two small children, here to seek less expensive living than the city, or else recently married couples here to start a new life together. Nearly all of them are Asian and several of the women wear scarves around their heads like Auntie Shafiq. When Draco runs through town, it’s no longer silent and still, but loud and lively. Parents call out to their kids playing in the street, children laugh and screech and sometimes run alongside him to the end of their road like they’re racing him, and the entire town consistently smells of some of Draco’s favorite foods. 

The new neighbors are friendly and lovely and seem delighted to hear Draco greet them with _salaam_ s as he sees them. Draco likes them, likes the little kids who speak to him in Urdu that he doesn’t quite understand, likes the adults who invite him and George over for dinner. Calliope mentions that she’s been trying to clean up the park since the first family moved in, so that the children have a safe place to play, and Draco, George, and Blaise take her to the park that night and clean it all up with magic. Afterward, Draco sweeps protective and cleaning spells over the sidewalks all over town, wondering idly why he never bothered to take this kind of honest pride in Cokeworth before now. 

He tells Meriweather about it all at his first in-person appointment with her since February. She looks at him with an odd expression on her face as he talks, thoughtful and curious and amazed and proud. She says that he seems to be doing very well, that he seems to understand his purpose, that he seems to have found the beauty in vulnerability. She suggests they meet only once a month now, instead of every other week. The thought scares Draco at first, unsettles him.

“What if things get bad again, in my head?” he asks.

“Then we can meet sooner,” she says easily, “and we can always correspond by owl. Anytime you need to talk to me, I assure you, I’ll be there. But I believe you’ll be needing me less than you think.”

Draco isn’t sure if she’s right about that, but he’s willing to try. That, in itself, feels like real progress.

\---

There’s no real conversation that happens, but Draco and George seem to know anyway that Draco isn’t going back to work at George’s shop. He stays home, that first day back, when George goes to work, cringing as he steps into the fireplace, steeling himself for the August rush. Draco feels rather guilty at first, until he brings George lunch later in the day and sees that Percy is still there. 

“He offered to quit his Ministry job,” George says, downing his cup of tea in seconds. “Says he wants to work here full-time for as long as I’ll let him.”

“And?” Draco says.

“And...I think it’s what Fred would want,” George says softly. “It’s what _I_ want. Plus, I mean, it’s not like he destroyed the place while I was gone. May have made it better, even. The verdict’s still out, though.” Draco grins.

“That’ll be good for the both of you, I think.”

Draco, meanwhile, rents an available space in Diagon Alley and prepares to open his own shop. He commissions Dean Thomas to design posters for the walls with information about the meanings of different wand woods, the characteristics of various wand cores, interesting facts about wand use and wandcrafting practices around the world. Thomas thanks him for talking Lucius into meeting Thomas and giving him information about who his father was, and Draco lets Thomas try the wands he’s made already, to see if one is his. The look on Thomas’ face when he’s chosen by one of Draco’s wands - twelve inches, Indian mahogany from Vietnam, mermaid hair from Brazil, springy - makes Draco feel like he’s doing the right thing, makes his whole body feel the way his hand did when he picked up his own wand for the first time.

Draco spends every waking moment carving wands, whittling down branches, pairing wood with cores, pricking his fingers with a knife. He obviously has a long way to go before he builds up an inventory like Ollivander’s, but it’s not so bad of a start. He goes to Ollivander’s shop at lunchtime one day, shows him several wands he’s made, and Ollivander laughs happily as he performs magic with each of them, even the ones with tricky cores. Draco asks if it ever bothers him, not knowing all the myriad of secrets of wandlore, knowing that he’ll never uncover it all. Ollivander looks at him thoughtfully.

“Does it ever bother _you_?” Ollivander asks. Draco takes a minute to think about it before he responds.

“I think that it’s easy to feel entitled to all the answers, as a wandmaker,” he says slowly. “I think that any frustration over it is bound to be a great motivator to learn as much as one can on the subject.” He smiles. “I like that I’ll never be bored.”

He shows his parents his shop as soon as all the shelving and other furnishings are completed and in place. They look around with great interest, testing some of the wands, admiring the dark finish on the desk and chairs and shelves, running their fingers over the posters, all in silence. Finally, after ten long minutes, Draco’s mother looks at him.

“I love it, Draco,” she says, her voice thick with feeling. “I’m so happy that you’re happy.” Draco gives her a small smile.

“Thank you, Mother,” he says. His father then reappears from between two shelves and approaches him and Narcissa.

“I’m proud of you, Draco,” his father says. Draco opens his mouth to speak, but ends up saying nothing, ducking his head down and looking away instead. 

“Have you, though, perhaps….” Draco’s father trails off. He winces before continuing. “Are you quite certain that you shouldn’t...change the name of the shop?” Draco blinks at him.

“Why?” he asks. His father swallows, looks around.

“It’s just that, well, we can’t pretend that the Malfoy name is of high value these days,” he says. “I accept my responsibility in our, ah, downfall, but I do not wish for you to suffer anymore because of it. ‘Malfoy’s Fine Wands’....” He gestures around the shop, shakes his head. “It will be bad for your business, I fear.”

Draco looks around his shop, behind him at the counter where _Malfoy’s Fine Wands_ , emblazoned with a single enchanted depiction of a small eel winding its body around the letters, is painted in green and black script high on the wall. He thinks of the matching projecting sign outside his shop, sans the eel, swinging a bit in the blessed breeze of early August, and again the one mounted on the building itself above the door. He glances at the rows of shelves, and if he squints, he can just barely make out the green and black _M_ logo on each wand box nearest to him. 

He looks back at his father. He shakes his head.

“I’m proud to be a Malfoy,” he says, his voice sure and certain. “I’ll never be ashamed of our name.”

\---

There’s a small portrait of Snape deep within the confusing corridors of the Malfoy Manor that Draco’s parents haven’t looked at in over three years. Draco takes it.

He hangs it up in his shop, on a blank bit of wall in the inventory closet in the back. He crosses his arms and stares at the black canvas.

“Snape,” he says. He waits a few moments. “Snape,” he says again. He waits some more. He rolls his eyes. He sighs. “I _know_ you’re there. I can hear you breathing from beyond the frame. This is very childish of you, you know. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not sure why I thought dying would bring about a new maturity in you.”

“I see that age has not decreased your incessant cheek,” says Snape, finally appearing in the frame. Draco smirks.

“It’s probably just gotten worse,” he says.

“I assume a close relationship with a Weasley _would_ exacerbate it,” Snape says. Draco raises an eyebrow. Snape sighs. “Minerva McGonagall found it to be quite a hilarious development. Phineas Nigellus was not pleased.” Draco snorts.

“And you?” he asks. Snape looks at him for a long moment, his expression as unreadable in death as it ever was in life.

“We can’t help who we love,” Snape says finally, in a measured and calculated tone. Draco purses his lips, taken a bit by surprise at the answer. Before he can respond, Snape looks around the room with narrowed eyes. “Where am I? Where did you bring me? This isn’t the Manor.”

“You’re in my shop,” Draco says. Snape gives him a sharp look, eyebrows raised, blinking slowly.

“ _You_ have a _shop_ ,” he says dryly, like he’s refusing to fall for the joke that Draco is so obviously playing on him. Draco smiles and pulls a wand from a box on a shelf next to Snape’s portrait.

“Ten and a half inches, olive from Italy, pogrebin hair from Poland, rather stiff,” he says, producing two dozen little cherry blossoms from the tip of the wand with a simple wave. The flowers float slowly downward and Snape looks mildly impressed, which is fairly significant for him.

“You’ve become a wandmaker,” he says. Those who knew him well would be able to discern the slight interest and wonder in his voice. Draco hears it immediately, takes pride in it even as it makes his smile turn sad. He looks down at his feet.

“Before I forget, or decide I don’t want to see you for another three years, I want to say thank you for--”

“Oh, Draco, we don’t have to do _this_ ,” Snape interrupts, his face full of discomfort. 

“ _Yes_ , we do,” Draco snaps, looking up at the portrait again. “Or at least _I_ do. Maybe _you_ were perfectly satisfied with acting like you were perpetually stuck in your Hogwarts years until you died, but _I’m_ trying to become an actual adult here, so either leave or let me say what I’ve got to say.” Snape raises an eyebrow but remains silent, albeit with some clear reluctance.

“ _As I was saying_ ,” Draco says, opting now to just barrel forward with it all, “thank you for what you did to keep my family and me safe. I’m including everything you did in my sixth and seventh year in that, by the way, all those times you tried to make sure I never knew what it was like to kill old men and torture children.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m not sure if I forgive you yet for lying to me, and I _certainly_ don’t forgive you yet for lying to my father and mother, but I do recognize the stress and pressure of your position. I’m sorry for what I said the last time I saw you, in Dumbledo--your-- _McGonagall’s_ office. I thought, then, that everything you’d done was about Potter. I realize, now, that it’s more complicated.”

“Much of what I did _was_ for you,” Snape says quietly, “and your parents as well.”

“I know that now,” Draco says, nodding. “I’ve learned to appreciate messiness.”

They talk for a few minutes more, about what Draco’s done with Spinner’s End, about the evolution of Cokeworth, about Blaise and Pansy, about the Grand Tour. Draco promises not to let George do anything silly to Snape’s portrait, and Snape swears not to tell anyone in the Headmistress’ Office anything that Draco says to him. 

“The shop opens tomorrow,” Draco says, looking at his watch. “I’ve got celebratory dinner plans to get to.”

“Farewell,” Snape says, unceremoniously, with a dismissive wave of his hand. Draco snorts again, rolls his eyes as he walks out of the room, taking out the lights with a jab of his wand as he goes.

“Oh, and Draco?” 

Draco doubles back, lights the tip of his wand enough to see Snape looking thoroughly perturbed just inside the portrait frame.

“Yes?” Draco asks.

“Don’t tell Potter that I’m here.”

\---

His Grand Opening Eve celebratory dinner is at the Leaky Cauldron, where George, Blaise, Calliope, Pansy, Longbottom, Luna, Granger, Ginny, Potter, and Weasley all present him with a silver plaque meant for the exterior of his shop.

_Established 10 August 2001_  
_by Draco Malfoy,_  
_who once owned the Elder Wand_  
_and did not even know it_

Draco looks at it and laughs for five consecutive minutes. What a truly bizarre fact of his life. They all walk with him to the shop where he affixes it to the brick wall next to the door. It’s at a height that most adults wouldn’t notice, but most eleven-year-olds would. He wants it to be a funny little thing that people have to look for, that no one totally believes. He wants it to fall back into a rumor. In twenty years, Hogwarts students walking through Diagon Alley will be too young to know, and their parents won’t have told them that obscure detail, and they’ll read the plaque and think it’s a joke, for publicity.

But Draco will know, and so will all ten people standing behind him. 

He smiles down at the plaque, touches his fingers to it, feeling the engraved lettering. He hopes that the shop will be here still, twenty years from now, that he and George will still be together, maybe married, maybe with a pet, or maybe even with a child. He hopes that Blaise and Calliope will have at least one little half-blood witch or wizard running circles around them and breaking hearts, that Pansy will still be traipsing through mud in high-heeled boots with a barefoot Luna and an appropriately-attired Longbottom who still looks at both of his girlfriends like they’re his entire world. He hopes that Weasley and Potter will still be trying to keep up with Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode at work, that Ginny will have earned more Quidditch Championship rings than Gwenog Jones, that Granger will have mastered the balancing act of running the Department of Magical Education while also sitting on the Wizengamot. 

He hopes that the ten people behind him right now will still be behind him then. He hopes that they’ll all have multiple vacations at Blaise’s villa under their belts, and cheesy souvenirs from a dozen Great American Road Trips. He hopes that Weasley will still be antagonized by Draco’s mere presence. He hopes that George and Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson will have found a way to be friends again. He hopes that his parents will be recovered and travelling and coming over to Spinner’s End for tea. He hopes that Victoire will still think he’s cool. He hopes that half of his closet space will be taken up by Weasley sweaters made just for him by Molly. He hopes that his mother and her sister will be on speaking terms. He hopes that his father will have visited the Malfoi’s vineyards once or twice. He hopes that spring won’t be so hard on them all, still.

And perhaps, in twenty years’ time, kids wandering through Diagon Alley will scoff at the plaque outside his shop, not because they don’t know the truth, but because they know _better_. Everyone knows, after all, that the Elder Wand doesn’t really exist.

\---

Draco was never expecting to do particularly amazing business - obviously Ollivander’s is the best, since before years started being counted in succession, and surely most people will want to staunchly avoid anything associated with the Malfoy name - so he’s rather pleasantly surprised at the positive response that his shop receives. The unpopularity of his name must be enough marketing to get people to come in out of pure curiosity, but then, once inside, most people seem to actually like the shop. Even those who don’t buy a new wand enjoy reading the posters and perusing the shelves to see the variety of wand woods and cores used and their origins. 

In what Draco thinks is an interesting twist, many of his customers are incoming Hogwarts students with their Muggle parents who don’t know to associate the name ‘Malfoy’ with hatred for their kind. He watches the faces of awestruck eleven-year-olds light up when a wand chooses them and immediately run over to the posters to learn about their wands. He makes sure to tell them that what they read there doesn’t have to necessarily be true, that they are responsible for their own futures, that the characteristics of wands are determined by their wielders just as much as the wielders’ characteristics are foretold by their wands. He asks them to send him an owl once they’re at school, to let him know how they’re doing with the wands and how they like Hogwarts, and he warns them about Peeves and tells them that Slughorn’s favorite candy is crystallized pineapple. He asks them to choose Slytherin if the Sorting Hat gives them a choice. 

Several of his classmates visit the shop as well, to see him and also to buy new wands for themselves. Daphne Greengrass comes in while she’s in Diagon Alley to meet a subject for an interview for her latest investigative report in _The Daily Prophet_. Marcus Flint, looking slightly less troll-like now than he did during school, buys a wand of ebony with a skunk-ape hair core. Graham Pritchard and Malcolm Baddock, who just graduated with full marks on their N.E.W.T.s a few months ago, walk into the shop holding hands and leave with two new wands, excited to use them in their upcoming Healer training. Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode show up on their lunch breaks, eager to share stories with Draco about Weasley and Potter as they shop for new wands. Adrian Pucey, Uchi Akimbo, Cassius Warrington, Amrish Gupta, Heather Thatcham, and Astoria Greengrass make purchases, too. They all send him owls to tell him how wonderfully their wands work, and the satisfaction that Draco feels from that alone completely eclipses any negative thing passersby mumble about him and his family and his shop.

The last week of August is busy, the shop full of current and future Hogwarts students, both children of Slytherins here for wands made by a Malfoy specifically and Muggleborn children who don’t know any better. He works with each one individually to find the wand that chooses them, sometimes going through forty wands in search of the right one. The looks on their faces make it worth the trouble and time, and all Draco can think of is the limitless potential filling his shop as each new person enters. In this shop, with each customer, surrounded by and entrenched in magic, he forgets everything going on outside, everything happening in his head. 

On the last day of August, he’s standing in front of a shelf on a far side of the shop with a tall, chubby half-blood girl with curly hair, testing out the scouler willow wands, when the bell above the door rings. He takes the one she just tried - eleven and a quarter inches, jarvey fur core, vaguely pliable - and puts it back in its box and replaces it on the shelf, then peeks around to tell his new customer to have a seat next to the two people still waiting, but--

It’s Arthur Weasley.

Draco had, truth be told, forgotten all about Arthur Weasley.

He looks down at the girl and quietly says, “One moment, please, dear,” and steps out to front of the shop. Arthur looks uncomfortable. _Good._ “Can I help you with something?” he asks. Arthur clears his throat.

“I was hoping we could talk,” he says. Draco gives him a measured look.

“I’m with a customer right now, and as you can see, I’ve got a bit of a queue,” he says, “but I’m available after closing. We can meet at the Three Broomsticks.” Arthur winces.

“Can we perhaps meet somewhere more private?” he asks, grimacing. Draco looks him in the eyes.

“No.”

Arthur purses his lips, clenches his jaw. “Very well. See you around 5.”

Draco tells George that his parents have summoned him to the Manor after work briefly to give him a cake to celebrate surviving his business’ first week before school, which is true, but he also sticks his head in the fireplace in his office to tell his father and mother that he’ll be a bit late, and then he Apparates to Hogsmeade. He and Arthur get to the Three Broomsticks at about the same time, but only Draco orders a butterbeer. He’s not sure what to expect here, exactly, but he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t feel nervous at all. They sit for several minutes in a silence that only seems to bother Arthur, who taps his fingers on the table relentlessly while Draco enjoys his butterbeer. Finally, Arthur sighs, and purses his lips for what feels like the final time, a great push to courage.

“I’m sorry I was reckless with information that endangered you,” he says. It’s so formally and unnaturally worded that Draco can’t help a bubble of laughter from escaping him, but Arthur does look properly ashamed, so he at least knows that it’s a sincere apology. Arthur flushes and clears his throat for the fourth time that night. “It came down to, ah, old prejudices. I hope you can forgive me for finding the irony in...somebody like you suddenly not having magic,” Arthur continues, gesturing awkwardly. Draco raises an eyebrow. Molly must have lectured him at least once a week over the last eight months.

“I can forgive that, yes,” Draco says, careful to keep any feeling from invading his voice. “It’s nothing that I didn’t find ironic myself.” Arthur swallows, winces.

“Yes, I...I understand that it will take more time for you to forgive...the other thing. _Things_ ,” he corrects himself. “I really am sorry. I let my judgment be clouded by old hatreds. But I was never fully blind. I know you’re good for George. I saw how happy he was with you, and probably still is, I assume.” He takes a deep breath, his mouth contorting into funny shapes before finally getting the words out. “I would like to start over again, with you, and with you and George, if you’re willing.” 

Draco finishes off his butterbeer and rubs his thumb over the label on the bottle for a few moments, considering. He honestly never thought that this would actually happen, that Arthur would ever come to him with apologies and remorse, with a more open mind and tentatively open arms. He’s never really given much thought to what he would do if this situation ever presented itself, how he would phrase his responses, how long he would make Arthur Weasley sweat it out, what decision he would make, ultimately. He thinks of George, though, of himself, of family, of the future, twenty years from now, and the choice is easier than he would have predicted. Of course, he doesn’t have to let Arthur know that.

“Are you only saying all this because you miss George?” he asks with narrowed eyes, honestly curious but also wanting to make Arthur feel uncomfortable for as long as he possibly can. “I understand if that’s the case - I miss him when he’s just in another room, so I don’t even want to imagine going over eight months without talking to him. But I will not try this again if it’s just going to end exactly like the last time. I won’t put George through that again, much less myself.” 

“No, I promise it will be better this time,” Arthur says emphatically. Draco believes him. Arthur folds his hands together anxiously, and Draco sighs.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s start over.” He holds out his hand. Arthur looks at it in surprise before reaching forward and shaking it. “So how many times did Molly have to shout at you - I mean, _really_ let you have it - before you changed your mind?” Arthur huffs out a laugh.

“Actually, in the end, it was Ron,” he says. It’s Draco’s turn to look surprised.

“Really?” he asks. Arthur nods.

“After he got back from that big international trip you lot took, he came to my office at the Ministry for lunch, just him, and he--how did he phrase it? He levelled with me. Said you really have changed, and it was obvious how much you care for George, and I should go ahead and get over myself,” Arthur says. 

“Huh. Will wonders never cease?” Draco says thoughtfully. “You should probably listen to your wife more often, though.”

“Speaking of Molly, d’you think you and George could come to the Burrow for dinner sometime soon?” Arthur asks, folding his hands again.

“Well, tomorrow’s our anniversary,” Draco says, “but the day after...I don’t see why not. Ask Molly to cook enough for two more.”

“She’s never stopped,” Arthur says, with an odd, contrite look on his face. Draco hums. He’s not surprised.

\---

Draco doesn’t tell George about the conversation with George’s father until the next day. Since there’s no one coming in on the first of September to Malfoy’s Fine Wands, Draco closes a bit early there and goes to George’s shop instead, where he attempts to talk about it as quietly as possible while doing some quick reshelving. Percy at least has the decency to pretend he’s not eavesdropping on every word.

“And you believe him?” George asks, unable to keep a degree of hopefulness from his tone.

“Yes, I do,” Draco says. “I said we could go over for dinner tomorrow night, but if you need more time...I mean, I know this isn’t wholly about me, so it’s completely your call.” George nods slowly as he places more boxes of fireworks on the shelf next to him.

“He does have some apologies to make to me,” he says, “but he can do that at the Burrow. You alright with getting there early enough for us to have a chat?”

“Of course,” Draco says with a smile. “I’ll have to reacquaint myself with the house anyway, I’m sure.”

“Mum’s going to be so pleased,” Percy says, peeking out from behind a nearby shelf. Draco snickers as George rolls his eyes.

“Thanks for your discretion, Perce.”

Draco asks, as George is locking up the shop, where they’re going for lunch, but George doesn’t answer, just takes his hand and pulls him into a little cafe across from Gringotts that Draco’s never even noticed before. 

“It only shows itself after noon on the first of September,” George says, grinning delightedly at Draco’s shock. “It’s a meeting place for Diagon Alley business owners to unwind after August. I haven’t been in a few years, because, well. _You_ know. Let’s just say I withdrew, after the war. But now you’re a business owner, too, so I’m using you as an easy excuse to come back.” Indeed, the cafe is already full of familiar faces, everyone drinking tea or brandy and milling about, catching up, talking about their worst customers of the season, swearing to make changes for next year. Draco bites his lip and turns away, back toward George, ducking his head.

“George, these people don’t want to see me,” he says lowly. “They don’t want me here, _networking_ with them. I’m sure they barely even want my shop on Diagon Alley.” George puts his hand on Draco’s shoulder, squeezes, gives him a sympathetic look.

“Give them a chance, Draco,” he says. “They’ve seen you change, they see who you’ve become.” Draco grits his teeth, unsure, and George gives a small sigh. “Listen, you never saw them, after you were attacked. They were horrified. I haven’t seen them that furious since the war, you know, since Ollivander was kidnapped. You weren’t even running your own shop then and they still considered you one of their own by that point. And you haven’t seen them since you opened Malfoy’s Fine Wands - you’ve just been holed up in the shop, shutting out everything outside of it, which is fine to do with all those assholes who walk by and scoff and say in scandalized tones--” he adopts his absurd high society lady voice, which always startles Draco into laughter no matter how many times he’s heard it--“‘Merlin, can you believe that Malfoy boy has a shop here? How could they let that Death Eater operate here in Diagon Alley?’” He pauses to let Draco regain his composure before continuing. “You haven’t stepped outside long enough for your shop neighbors to congratulate you, or ask to look around inside, or see how you’re faring in your first few weeks of business.” Draco rolls his eyes.

“What, have they been coming to you with those comments, then?” he asks dryly.

“ _Yes_ ,” George says, much to Draco’s surprise. “Madam Malkin said she’s proud to see who you’ve grown into. That weirdo who runs Flourish and Blotts said he’s impressed at what all you did with those books you ordered from him. Go and talk to people, love. Hear it from them yourself.”

So Draco does. It’s a surprisingly pleasant couple of hours. George is right, as it turns out, and the attitude that once greeted Draco coldly and reluctantly as he walked up and down Diagon Alley inquiring about jobs has disappeared completely. People are excited to learn more about his shop, about how his first few weeks went. They advise him not to grow concerned with the lull that often comes in September. They suggest a few different ways to market the shop, ideas that likely never would have occurred to him. They say they’re happy that he’s there with them.

“I know you’re not going to say it, so I’ll just say it in my impression of you--” George starts as they leave the cafe to Apparate back home.

“You were right, George,” Draco says, stopping George in his tracks.

“Oi, that was going to be a stellar vocal performance,” he says, mildly affronted, but flushed with happy surprise. “I can’t believe you, a lover of the arts, would deny me my chance to truly shine.” Draco snorts.

After spending the afternoon at the cafe, they spend the evening having dinner at the same restaurant as one year ago. It’s a redo, of sorts, with a goal of less trauma at the end of it, which thankfully, blessedly works out. 

Draco spends the night on his knees, in front of George, his mouth watering and his arms behind his back, and over George, too, tugging at his own hair as George grows impatient with the slow rhythm of his riding, holds onto Draco’s hips tightly and fucks up into him, making Draco cry out. He begs so much and so loudly - for George’s touch, for the privilege of placing his tongue on George’s skin and tasting him, for release - that he’s nearly lost his voice by the time he finally falls asleep, curled up and resting his head against George’s chest, safe as ever in George’s arms.

\---

The following evening, Draco and Weasley have a full conversation standing next to one another in a hallway inside the Burrow, practically shoulder to shoulder, both against the wall, and not once looking at each other.

“I heard about what you did,” Draco says, and hopes that he won’t have to elaborate.

“I didn’t do it for _you_ ,” Weasley says. 

“I know. You did it for George,” Draco says. 

“Exactly,” Weasley says, “and for the rest of my family. You don’t know what it’s been like without George.”

“I can imagine,” Draco says, “although I don’t want to. You’re a good brother, Weasley, and a good son, too, I suppose.”

“Right,” Weasley says slowly, seemingly taken aback by the compliment. “Did it hurt you to say that just now?”

“God, you’re annoying,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. “I just wanted to express my gratitude.”

“Right,” Weasley says again. “You’d better not be reading anything into this, Malfoy. _I_ still hate you.”

“Good,” Draco says, “because I still hate _you_.”

“Excellent,” bites out Weasley.

“Fantastic,” snaps Draco. 

Molly calls them to dinner. Victoire stops crawling at Draco’s feet and holds her arms out, permission for him to pick her up. He does so gladly, waving her little hand in Weasley’s direction as he walks away with her.

“Say ‘ _au revoir_ ’ to your worst uncle,” he says in a singsong voice.

“I _heard that_ ,” Weasley says. Draco smiles. Balance is restored.


	18. Epilogue

In early October, Luna comes to the shop to interview Draco for what she tells him is a small blurb in _The Quibbler_. When he receives his complimentary copy of the issue two weeks later, though, he learns that what perhaps began as a tiny corner description of his shop somehow became a four-page feature. It’s not even just about the shop, either. It’s mostly about him. Luna’s written, more than anything, about a friend of hers, about personal growth and self-discovery, about the best place in the United States to get a good cup of tea. 

She’s included a few beautiful photos, taken by Astoria Greengrass, who was always impressive with a camera: of the posters and shelves in his shop; of four wand boxes, the focus on their label stickers which declare length, wood and its origin, core and its origin, and flexibility; of the big backsplash of his shop name painted on the wall behind the till; and of himself, standing in front of his shopfront window, the silver plaque glittering in the corner of the frame. There’s another photo, too, not snapped by Astoria, but by magic at George’s hand: ten unlikely companions in the middle of Walt Disney World, wearing big grins and stupid matching t-shirts declaring _This is the start of something Big!_ in front of a gigantic hedge shaped like a mouse’s round head and ears.

It feels...nice. Warm, like sitting near a fire after a cold day. He reads it three times and then goes to the newsstand to buy a second copy, and then two more, so that he can frame all four pages of it twice over. He hangs one on the wall next to the far left shelf, where anyone can see it as they wander and he can see it each time he looks up from the till. The second, he puts on the wall in his office at the back, where he can reread it whenever he wants, which he does immediately, for the fourth and fifth times. He sends an owl to Luna’s father, subscribing to _The Quibbler_ , and to Luna, reminding her that he made a list of establishments across the States where they ate and ranked their teas in excruciating detail, and the place Luna recommended in her article was only number two on his list. 

“I will not be made a fool of nor will I have my judgment called into question by your international readers, _ma bella lune_ ,” he writes, “and I hereby demand a correction to run in the next issue and request that you accept my utmost gratitude and affection.” He smiles as he watches the owl disappear in the sky.

He and his parents have dinner that evening at the Burrow. It’s become something like a regular occurrence, almost, and his mother and father are finally beginning to feel more comfortable in this house, though his father is still sitting rather stiffly beside him in the old wooden kitchen chair. Tonight, Andromeda is in attendance, too, and Draco’s mother is on the floor with her and Potter in the living room, playing with little Teddy. Although less jarring than the first time they accidentally met six weeks ago, it’s a strange sight, the two remaining Black sisters together once again, but Narcissa and Andromeda apparently find it easier to spend time together with the baby as a buffer, and Teddy loves the new additional attention. 

The meal itself has come and gone now, and it’s getting late, but Draco still sits at the kitchen table with his father and Arthur and Bill, nursing a butterbeer and discussing wand use laws. 

“I’m not _saying_ we should go handing out wands to goblins all of a sudden,” he says defensively. “I just think it’s an issue worth revisiting in our legislation, and when we do, the debates shouldn’t be so completely dominated by humans.”

“There will _never_ be legislation on this that satisfies both humans and goblins,” Arthur says, shaking his head. “It’s too complicated; it’s got too much of a bloody history on _both_ sides. Your idealism is admirable, but there’s realistically just no potential for a good, true resolution.”

“Then we take small steps towards something on which both sides can agree,” Draco says. 

“Like what?” his father asks, running his fingertip around the rim of his glass of pumpkin juice. “A screening process for determining which non-humans are safe enough to carry wands? Some sort of lottery system for which ones get wands each year? Any sort of meaningful slow progress would likely be, by necessity, discriminatory in some manner. It would cause more violent rebellions than our world has seen in generations.”

“It doesn’t have to be progress like _that_ ,” Draco says. He turns to Bill. “Alright, what do you think?” Bill hums, thumbing absentmindedly at his long earring.

“I think I disagree with my dad, but don’t get cocky,” he says, holding up his hand and effectively cutting short Draco’s smile. “There _is_ potential, theoretically, but the problem is, Draco, that in order for any progress to be made, it would require both parties to come to the table to discuss and debate in good faith toward one another, which just isn’t possible right now. There’s no trust whatsoever.”

“So then we need that bridge-building work to be done now, before we can consider legislation,” Draco says, persistent. “We need more people like _you_ , who know goblins well and--”

“I’m not an activist,” Bill says with a laugh. “You’re asking for someone like--”

“Granger!” Draco calls, having just seen a flash of bushy hair walk by the room. She peeks in from the hallway, her eyebrows raised. “Come here, I need someone on my side.”

“Wand use again?” she says as she takes a seat next to Arthur and crosses her arms on the table, her eyes twinkling with eagerness for the discussion. “Have any of you even brought up the fact that it doesn’t affect _only_ goblins?”

“Exactly,” Draco says, sitting back in his chair. “So, Arthur, Bill, Father, take goblins out of this entirely theoretical conversation for now, and look at who else the wand ban targets.”

“House-elves--” Granger begins.

“Who have their own magic,” Arthur says.

“Centaurs--”

“Who’ll be offended at the mere offer of wands,” Lucius says. 

“Vampires, hags, veela, giants--”

“Well, wait, giants shouldn’t get wands,” Draco says. “They already outmatch humans for brute strength.”

“ _That’s_ where the discriminatory measures come in,” Lucius says. 

“But there’s a case to be made for--”

“Draco, are you on about wand use laws again?” George says, wandering into the kitchen with Victoire in his arms.

“Yes,” Arthur, Bill, and Lucius say as George sits down in the chair next to Granger. Draco looks at them all, mock offended.

“Granger and I were merely engaged in an academic debate,” he says. George raises an eyebrow and Draco sighs, thoroughly caught. George snickers at him. 

“Honestly, babe. One Mongolian bull-woman gives you hair from her tail and suddenly you think you owe her,” he says, shaking his head, but he’s smiling all the while. Draco’s mother walks in then, dropping dramatically into the empty chair beside her husband. Her hair is a bit askew, the bun that had been fairly tight at the start of the evening falling loosely now, and she looks as if she’s just gotten rather unwanted and unnecessary exercise. Lucius hooks his walking stick around one of the legs of her chair and pulls it closer to him.

“Lucius, I am far too old to be chasing after children,” she says lazily. 

“Nonsense, darling, you look just as stunning to me now as you did twenty-five years ago,” Lucius says. She gives him a look, raising one eyebrow as sharp as only a Black can do, and grabs for his glass, downing the rest of his pumpkin juice in one gulp. 

“And you’re just as smooth a talker, Lucius,” she says with an innocent smile. Draco snorts.

“Christ,” George mutters. He blows a raspberry on Victoire’s forehead. “Your Uncle Draco really is _so much_ like his mum,” he says sweetly to her. She gurgles.

“Oi, Malfoy,” Weasley says, poking his head into the kitchen, “my mum’s asking for you upstairs.”

“Be more specific,” Draco says dryly, raising his hands above his head in a bored gesture, as if Weasley needs reminding that the entire house is _upstairs_.

“I dunno,” Weasley says defensively. “She was going up when she told me to get you. Figure it out.” Draco sighs and pushes away from the table, makes sure to bump hard into Weasley on his way out of the room before beginning his trek up the stairs.

He finds Molly on the fourth floor, in her and Arthur’s bedroom. Draco is quite horrified to be in here, but he thinks he disguises it well. Molly is standing in the corner in front of a large grandfather clock. She turns when she hears the floors creak with his footsteps and motions for him to come in further, closes the door behind him with a jerk of her wand. He approaches her, somewhat concerned.

“Molly, what’s going on?” he asks, uncertain.

“I’ve been working on a gift for your parents for their anniversary party in December,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, despite the two of them being alone in the room. 

“What?” he says, surprised. “Molly, you don’t have to--”

“I wanted to get some feedback from you,” she continues, dutifully ignoring his protests. “What do you think?” Draco finally looks in front of them and sees it - _really_ sees it. 

The grandfather clock before them has a face just like the special Weasley clock hanging on the living room wall. There are four hands - Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, and George - and in place of numbers are “Manor,” “Work,” “Spinner’s End,” “Traveling,” “Lost,” “George’s Flat,” “Mortal Peril,” “Hospital,” and “Prison.” He barks out a laugh at that one.

“I wondered if I should take it off,” Molly says nervously.

“No, leave it,” he says. “It’ll make them laugh when they’ve had a bit too much to drink.” Molly chuckles.

“Alright, then, I trust you. Is there anything else you think I should add, in terms of locations?” she asks. He bites his lip.

“You could add the Burrow, if you’re alright with it,” he says. “Perhaps Shell Cottage, too, if Bill and Fleur allow it.” He turns to her. “This is incredible, Molly. My mother will love it.” She flushes, smiles.

“It’s been nice to work like this with magic again, truth be told,” she says. 

“If you ever want to, like, make and sell these, maybe, then you can take orders at my shop,” he says. “I mean, obviously, George would offer his shop as well, but--there’s a real market for these, Molly, especially, I think, for Muggle families whose kids are going off to Hogwarts.” Molly waves her hands dismissively.

“Don’t be silly, dear, I couldn’t possibly,” she says, so Draco drops it for now. He makes a mental note to talk to George about it. Together, they could convince her. “Now, originally I wanted to add lots of silver, it being their twenty-fifth anniversary and all, but the cost….” She trails off, frowning. Draco immediately reaches into an inner pocket of his waistcoat and pulls out a small bag bulging with coins. He shoves it into her hand.

“Buy whatever you need, Molly. Deck it out in as much silver and as many snakes as you think it needs,” he says. 

“No, no, Draco, I don’t want to take your money.” She tries to give him back the coin bag, but he refuses, steps away from her as he closes his hands into fists. 

“Please, Molly, it’s a gift, and honestly, it’s just as much for my mother and father as it is for you,” he says. “You should be able to make the clock for them that _you _envisioned, right?” Molly hesitate, frowns down at the bag in her hand. It takes her several moments, during which Draco can tell that she’s arguing with herself, but finally she sighs. She opens the grandfather clock and places the bag of coins inside on its floor, under the pendulum bob, tucked away for future work. She turns to him as she closes the door.__

__

__

“I _will_ be giving you back any money I don’t spend on it,” she says sternly, pointing her finger at him. He knows better than to argue this.

“Fair enough,” he says. He’ll just use the leftover money that she returns to him to buy her a really nice Christmas gift.

\--- 

Draco awakens at 7 on an early December morning and knows, deep in his gut, that he needs to go see Goyle in Azkaban. 

It’s a stupid idea, absolutely mental, thoroughly senseless. He hasn’t spoken to Goyle since they got separated during the Battle of Hogwarts, hasn’t even spared a thought for him in over two years. Besides, he highly doubts that Goyle wants to see him, considering that it was _his_ testimony before the Wizengamot that put Goyle in prison in the first place. And no one should want to visit a place as terrible as Azkaban _voluntarily_. What an absurd thing to wake up with in his bones. 

Still, though…. 

It’s a stupid idea, but he can’t talk himself out of it. He kisses George and asks him to put a sign on the door of Malfoy’s Fine Wands to let customers know that the shop will be opening late, and once George leaves, he grabs an extra coat and apparates to Cruden Bay, where he boards a tiny boat to Azkaban. The North Sea becomes more volatile the closer the boat gets to its destination. Draco can’t help but wonder if that’s magic or the waters themselves, sensing the Darkness of the island, trying to keep people from landing there for their own good. 

He remembers, suddenly, the Muggleborn Registry, the scores of Muggleborn witches and wizards who were stripped of their wands and thrown into Azkaban during the war. Shacklebolt, in his desire for government transparency, had the numbers published in a multi-part report in _The Daily Prophet_ during the long two months of trials, but Draco doesn’t recall the precise count, only that many didn’t survive their sentence long enough to be freed once the Dark Lord fell. He closes his eyes against the wind and bows so that his forehead touches his knees, tries to calm his sudden nausea that has nothing to do with motion sickness. 

One day he’ll have to read those reports in the _Prophet_ archives, face up to what he was a part of, what he and his father helped make happen, he knows, but it can’t be today. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to dwell on it today. He takes deep breaths of cold air, counts them, and straightens his back at one hundred and nine, just in time to look up and see the enormity of the prison building looming over them. It seems to cast a shadow in every direction, and as aware as Draco is of Shacklebolt’s expulsion of the Dementors from this island, he could swear that he still feels their essence in the air as soon as the boat docks. 

It doesn’t look as horrible inside, somewhat brighter, even, though Draco assumes that any sort of reform that took place inside didn’t occur until after Shacklebolt became Minister. Not for the first time, he wonders what his father endured here, what the Dementors made him see inside his head. Lucius was frighteningly gaunt by the time he returned to their family, with deep red and purple circles under his eyes, shaken and unkempt and jumpy, violently averse to touch from anyone that wasn’t his wife or son. Draco knows better than to ask for details, but he’s never stopped wondering, not since the moment his father received his sentence. Whatever the prison interior looked like then, though, at least it’s fairly warm now. 

He checks in as a visitor, gets a badge to wear and everything - _Draco Malfoy, Visitor - Gregory Goyle_ \- and then a bored, raven-haired wizard leads him through a short maze of rooms and corridors until he reaches the Visitation Room, which surprisingly resembles a restaurant. He sits at one of the booths on the side and waits, biting his lip, tapping his fingers on the table nervously. He’s just about to bail on this, bolt out and leave, when the door opposite the one he came through opens. 

Goyle looks a good deal thinner, but otherwise about the same as he always did, although perhaps even meaner than before. He takes the seat across the Draco, puts his cuffed hands on the table, and narrows his eyes, which only makes them look smaller. Draco shifts uncomfortably, unsure who should speak first. Fortunately, Goyle makes the decision for him. 

“They told me it was you,” he says. He always spoke slowly, but his tone is lower now, more gravelly. It sounds like it hurts him to speak. “Thought they was lying. ‘No way Malfoy would show his face to me here,’ I said. ‘He’s too smart to do something so dumb.’” Draco clears his throat. 

“What was that rule that Snape had?” he says. “‘Even the smart ones are allowed one stupid moment in the Common Room per year’?” Goyle leans forward menacingly. Draco doesn’t move.

“Don’t talk to me about Hogwarts,” Goyle says. “That why you’re here? You got something to say to me?” Draco thinks about it for a moment. The thing is that he really doesn’t. He wracked his brain all morning, in the kitchen trying to talk himself out of this, in the boat on the way here, in the prison lobby, but he really just...doesn’t have anything to say to Goyle. 

So he lets Goyle talk, basically insult him, in that unintelligent way of his. Draco spent five years making sure that Crabbe and Goyle’s homework marks were good enough to keep them in his year because he needed the muscled lackeying that they provided, but Goyle was always the most stupid of them all, kept around for nothing but sheer bulk, not even very good at magic. Draco often wondered, at school, whether Goyle was capable of independent thought at all. Crabbe, at least, had that going for him, the fat lot of good it did him when it came down to it. But now, Goyle seems to have a better handle on things, enough to tell Draco that he’s a coward, two-faced, untrustworthy, all of which is true. Draco can’t really disagree, although he does think, given the cleverness of the more creative barbs, complete with metaphors and similes, that Goyle is most likely simply repeating what other Death Eater inmates have been saying about Draco and Lucius for three years. 

Eventually it gets round to Goyle berating him for what happened during the Battle of Hogwarts, though, and this...this sounds original. 

“Shouldn’t be surprised, I s’pose,” Goyle says. “You couldn’t handle it. You never could. Me and Crabbe and everyone else always knew it.” Draco furrows his brow, curious, and speaks up for the first time in nearly their whole allotted hour. 

“Why?” he asks. “How did you know that I couldn’t handle it?” Goyle looks at him like _he’s_ the dumb one. 

“Because you’re _soft_ , Draco,” he spits out with a sneer. He wears a victorious expression, all of a sudden, like he’s won something, like he’s just called Draco the worst, most offensive thing any man could ever be called. Draco knows that’s how he means it, as a terrible slight to his character, but he thinks about it, really twists it around in his head, considers what it means in a way that he hasn’t bothered to do in a long time. 

He thinks about George’s smile pressed against his skin. He thinks about his parents’ love, for each other, for him, for George, for his friends. He thinks about Auntie Shafiq and her mutton biryani in her little hermit castle, asking after her little gold piece and her little dragon. He thinks about Pansy and Blaise, Luna and Longbottom and Calliope. He thinks about Granger in the Malfoy Manor library. He thinks about Potter sharing space with him at 7:30 in the morning. He thinks about Ginny fiercely declaring that she wants to see Fred again. He thinks about Weasley doing the best he can with his loved ones’ nightmares. He thinks about the sweater that Molly gave him at Christmas, keeping him warm right now under his coat. He thinks about Fleur and Bill and Victoire, about the other shop owners on Diagon Alley, about Charlie and Percy, about the Malfois across the sea. He thinks about the wand in the pocket of his jeans, the clock sitting in a small bedroom of the Burrow waiting to be transported to the Manor tonight. 

Goyle’s right. Draco is soft. 

He’s proud of it. 

“You’re right,” he says, nodding. “I am.” 

An Auror appears next to the table, says, “Time’s up.” Draco nods again and stands to leave, pulls his coat a bit tighter around him as he heads for the door. His hand is on the doorknob when he hears Goyle calling out to him from the table. 

“Oi, wait!” 

Draco turns, raises his eyebrows. 

“You’ll come back and visit, won’t you?” Goyle asks. 

There’s no reason for Draco to do that, none at all, to just come every once in awhile to a prison that once housed his father and sit across from someone who was once his friend and be insulted for an hour. Draco feels no attachment, truthfully, to Goyle anymore, and even if he did, so much has changed between them now that it doesn’t make any sense to come visit him in fucking _prison_. 

But Goyle has a lonely look in his eyes, and, well. They just established that Draco’s soft. 

“Yeah, I’ll come back and visit,” he says. “Is once every couple of months alright?” Goyle nods exactly once, and barely, and Draco says, “See you in February.” 

That night, the crowd in the Malfoy Manor ballroom for Lucius and Narcissa’s twenty-fifth anniversary party is rather motley. With Andromeda and Draco’s toasts successfully delivered, music is playing loudly from the gramophone and the dance floor is full, and it takes Draco a few moments to catch sight of George, all the way across the room, in front of the grandfather clock. He begins to make his way over, passing Pansy trying to teach Luna and Longbottom how to waltz properly, and nearly knocking into Potter and Ginny and Andromeda dancing goofily around Teddy, who’s in a little laughing fit, and briefly gagging at the sight of Granger and Weasley behind them, who appear to be using this party to make up for never attending the Yule Ball together and are just openly snogging on the dance floor. He overhears a boisterous conversation between Auntie Shafiq and Arthur and Molly as he maneuvers around Calliope, who has clearly had too much champagne, and Blaise, who has as well but is attempting to keep that a secret. Just ahead of them, Fleur, too, has been enjoying her night out away from the baby and downing glass after glass of wine, much to Bill’s obvious amusement. Dutifully looking away from a corner where Percy and Audrey, the pretty woman who recently purchased Flourish and Blotts, are very awkwardly flirting their way through their second date, Draco pauses for a moment to smile at his parents, slow dancing with eyes only for one another, just as it’s always been, before finally escaping the throng. 

He takes his place to George’s right and follows his gaze. The clock turned out magnificently, adorned top to bottom with intricately engraved silver peacocks and its base bordered with snakes. It looks significantly better here than the old grandfather clock did, more beautiful, more personal. Later, two of its hands will be pointing to “Spinner’s End,” but for now, all four are on “Manor.” Draco slips his hand into George’s. 

“Guess we can never break up now, eh?” George says, squeezing Draco’s hand. He’s trying to make it a joke, but he doesn’t quite succeed. Something in his tone tells Draco that it’s more than that. He smiles, looks at George, who turns to look back at him. 

“I suppose we can’t,” he says quietly. He pulls George into a kiss, where everyone can see, and when they break apart, breathless, he grins, and starts walking back toward the center of the room, pulling George along. “Dance with me.” 


End file.
